A PENARTH grandmother has had her faith in humanity restored after a charity shop returned £100 she almost threw away.

Isabella Evans praised the volunteers from the Marie Curie Hospice Shop for returning the money that she had left in a box that she'd donated.

Mrs Evans had been filling up bags full of old clothes, toys and other items and donating them to the charity shop as she prepares to move out of her house.

Mrs Evans, 82, said: “A very nice gentleman came and picked up the last lot and took them down to the shop and left them for the manager. The next day the manager phoned me to say there was £100 in one of the boxes.”

She added: “I must have put it in there for safe keeping and forgot it was there.

“I knew I was missing money but never thought it would be in a charity bag.”

Mrs Evans, a mother of two, grandmother of two and great grandmother of three, praised the volunteer for going out of his way to return the money.

“He came round the next day and said the joy on my face when he returned the money would live with him forever,” she said.

“There aren’t many honest people around anymore so I really appreciate it.”

She added about the staff at the Marie Curie charity shop on Windsor Road.

“I would like to thank them all from the bottom of my heart. They have all been very good to me and look after me when I go to the shop. The manager is a very kind and caring person.”

The manager of the Marie Curie charity shop said it was a “heart-warming” story and that it was only because Mrs Evans was a registered gift aider that they managed to track her down.

“We all try to look after each other and our customers,” she said.

“It’s heart warming when it works.”

She added that it was an easy mistake to make.

“It’s terrible when something like that happens.

“You can easily leave something in a purse.”

Mrs Evans, who has been registered as partially blind, added that on the same day she had another stroke of luck as she won a small fortune on the National Lottery.

“I checked the lottery tickets in my purse and I had won £25 on one and £7 on another, so £32 in all,” she said.

“It was really my lucky day.

“I have never had such luck.”