A PENSIONER has thanked the Farnham community for ‘restoring her faith’ after she was handed an envelope containing more than £500 last week following a public appeal to replace her stolen pension money.

Elizabeth Murphy, well known locally as ‘Paddy’, was given her surprise Christmas present last Thursday by Karen Hutchings, who first posted about the theft on Facebook, and staff at the Edinburgh Woollen Mill in West Street who accepted donations in store.

It comes after Paddy, who has lived in Lower Bourne for all of her 80 years and worked at the Bourne Stores Post Office for some 54 years up to 2013, had her purse pinched in Farnham town centre on Friday, December 23 - containing almost £400 in cash and her bus pass.

Paddy told The Herald: “I came out of the Edinburgh Woollen Mill and had just got past Argos when I thought ‘that’s funny’ because the zip was open on my bag.

“My purse was missing and I didn’t know what to do because I didn’t have my bus pass or anything. I’d just taken out £280 pension money and £100 to pay my electricity and gas bills, and it was such a shock to lose all that money.

“I’m always giving things and helping people out so felt so let down. How could somebody do that to me?”

Distraught and confused, Paddy went back into the Edinburgh Woollen Mill where the staff consoled her, cobbled together £25 for her bus journey home and some shopping, and arranged for a replacement bus pass to be sent out.

The shop’s local marketing manager Trudy Kitabayashi also told her sister Karen, who posted Paddy’s story on the ‘Farnham Rants’ Facebook page and in just five days mustered more than £500 for the poor pensioner.

This included more than £150 from The Elm Tree pub in Weybourne and a generous £50 donation from a resident of the Isle of Mull in Scotland.

“It’s amazing,” Paddy continued. “I’d just got back in from a trip to Guildford when Karen and Trudy knocked on my door. It was quite a shock actually. I can’t believe it, I’ve never been so well off all of a sudden!

“How on earth can I thank everyone without knowing them? I’ve got a card for the ladies at the Edinburgh Woollen Mill and called The Elm Tree to thank them, but how on earth can I ever thank that lovely lady from the Isle of Mull who sent me £50 - not to mention everyone else?”