Recently, for example, a supporter left them an expensive collection of Egyptian artefacts. “Egyptology is not a subject we knew much about,” Saunders says. “When we received it, our first thought was ‘well, who do we ask to find out about it?’”
Other items from the collection had gone to a museum, so in the end they checked with the experts there. While the remaining artefacts weren’t up to auction standard, they were lovely decorations, so the charity was able to sell them through its charity shops.
Other donations have proved more lucrative. In 2002, the charity was gifted a Rolls-Royce. Always nice to have, but in this case it proved exceptionally so. This was a 1913 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, which they sold at auction for more than £140,000.
More recently, a keen philatelist bequeathed them his stamp collection, which included stamps celebrating the Queen’s Jubilee, Doctor Who and cricket.
They found a specialist who was able to value and auction them, raising nearly £50,000. Another left a model train collection he had built up over more than 60 years, which raised £1,000. The team was briefly excited that someone had bequeathed them a Rembrandt: the painting certainly bore some similarities. Although they were unable to authenticate the work, it was still of a high enough quality that it raised more than £60,000 at auction. A piano owned by the Twenties jazz singer Adelaide Hall fetched more than £7,000.
Realising the potential value of these unusual or miscellaneous legacies, Saunders says that in recent years the charity has become more organised about facilitating them. There is an eBay page where they can list unusual stuff. They offer a collection service, where they will come to a property and assess what they might be able to use.
“Not every item in a house is going to be saleable,” he says. “Some things have to be thrown away. But with Marie Curie we can take clothes, we can take bric-a-brac, we can take books. In the past we were more cautious about electrical items but we are now in a position to take more of those, too. We’re careful about overpromising and under-delivering, but where we can take things and sell them, we will.”
On at least two occasions, the charity has been given intellectual property. In the 1970s, the wife of the poet J Milton Hayes left Marie Curie the royalties for The Green Eye of the Yellow God, a famous poem from 1911. So far it has brought in more than £14,000. More recently, a well-known conductor died and left them a share of his estate, perhaps because Marie Curie had helped care for his wife when she had cancer. Among his gifts were the royalties from more than 200 of his CDs.
For a charity, what could be better? They are, quite literally, a gift that keeps giving. An unusual legacy, perhaps, but nonetheless welcome.