英富翁爲慈善賣房捐千萬 妻忍無可忍終離婚

He is not the first multimillionaire to quit the world of commerce and vow to give his entire fortune to charity. But few can have put their money where their mouth is with such conviction as Brian Burnie.

Once the owner of a £16million mansion, the 70-year-old now lives off his pension in a small flat and drives a battered Ford Fiesta.

The former recruitment firm boss pledged to dedicate his life to helping women with breast cancer after his wife was diagnosed with the disease.

But it emerged yesterday that the couple divorced after Shirley, his wife of almost 30 years, grew fed up with his addiction to parting with everything the family had worked for.

‘I didn’t intend to have to beat cancer and then spend the rest of my life living in a house like this and doing everything for everyone else,’ said Mrs Burnie, 66, who made a full recovery. ‘I’m sick of bloody charity and the hard work – we all are. I didn’t want to give everything away. We needed a home and an income and we have three children. I wanted security for us and our family.’

Born in a Newcastle bedsit, Mr Burnie grew up in a home without an indoor toilet and began working life as a grocery delivery boy aged 15.

After building successful businesses in construction and recruitment, he turned his ten-acre Northumberland estate into a £16million luxury hotel and spa.

But following his wife’s diagnosis a decade ago, Mr Burnie began to focus on charity. It was not a total surprise – at their wedding in 1981, he insisted they ask for donations to charity instead of presents.

In 2009, he sold the hotel and used all the proceeds to fund a fleet of cars ferrying rural patients to hospital – as part of his charity, Daft As A Brush.

Announcing they needed somewhere more ‘modern and easy to look after’, he shocked friends and former employees by moving his family to a tiny rented terraced house opposite a council estate in nearby Morpeth, insisting: ‘I’ve no interest in bricks and mortar.’

But there were signs his outwardly loyal wife was unhappy with the drastic change in lifestyle when he was persuaded to move them to a pretty stone house backing on to farmland.

Mrs Burnie hoped her husband’s retirement would allow them to spend more time together, but she said the ‘madness’ of devoting his life to helping others meant he was working 12 hours a day and barely seeing his family.

‘It took over his life, becoming more important than anything else to him,’ she added yesterday.

‘I said to him often that we had other things to consider, but his top three priorities were the charity, the charity and the charity.’ In 2011, she learned from someone at a hairdresser’s that her husband had bought a home in Gosforth, Newcastle, without telling her.

‘I felt he’d made his preparations for the end of the marriage and waited for me to find out,’ she said.

Shortly afterwards, according to Mrs Burnie, he told her the marriage was over, moving into a flat above the charity’s offices. The couple divorced in 2012.

But Mr Burnie denies he wanted to end the relationship and maintains there was nothing sinister about the house purchase, saying: ‘I never intended to live in it. I bought it for the charity.’ He still sees his grown-up children regularly, but they will not get a penny from him.

‘I had enough money to set them up for life, but I think that would be wrong,’ he said. ‘Your children have to make their own way.

Mr Burnie features in Channel 4’s documentary Jon Richardson Grows Up, tonight at 10.35pm. There is no mention of the couple’s split, though it does show him living alone in his flat.

Asked if he kept anything for himself he replies: ‘Nothing. I live off my pension – even that goes to the charity when I die.’擁有千萬財產的布萊恩·伯尼（Brian Burnie）並不是世界首位棄商從善的富人，但伯尼對慈善事業的巨大熱情絕對是鳳毛麟角。

現年70歲的伯尼曾擁有價值高達1600萬英鎊的豪宅，然而伯尼目前卻居住在小公寓裏，開着破舊的福特Fiesta，依靠其退休金度日。

在伯尼的妻子被診斷出乳腺癌後，這位前招聘公司的總裁就誓言將投入畢生精力到幫助罹患乳腺癌婦女的事業中。

但20日，人們卻發現這對夫婦早就離了婚。離婚的理由是伯尼的妻子雪莉（Shirley）受夠了近30年來伯尼對其慈善事業超乎尋常的熱枕。

從癌症中痊癒的雪莉現年66歲，對於離婚一事她表示，“我從沒想過打敗病魔後，餘生住在這樣的小房子裏，爲別人的事業奮鬥。我非常厭倦辛苦萬分又永無止境的慈善工作，我的孩子們也一樣。我不想捐出所有財物，我們需要一棟房子和一份收入，我們還有三名子女要養活。我希望我們的家庭能夠得到保障。”

伯尼出生在紐卡斯爾市（Newcastle），年幼的他居住在一所沒有衛生間的住宅。從15歲起，伯尼就開始在一家食雜店擔任送貨員。

當伯尼的事業在建築和招聘領域獲得成功後，他利用自己在諾森伯蘭郡（Northumberland）的三十畝土地建成了一棟價值1600萬英鎊的豪華旅館。

十年前，當雪莉被診斷罹患乳腺癌後，伯尼開始將注意力轉移到慈善事業。這對伯尼來說並不突兀，因爲早在1981年他們的婚禮上，伯尼就堅持賓客們的紅包應該發到慈善機構而非新人們手裏。

2009年，伯尼出售豪華旅館，並將出售所獲的所有錢款都用於建立一支車隊，專門負責將居住在鄉村的病人們送往城裏的醫院。而這僅僅是伯尼慈善事業的小小一部分。

伯尼認爲，他們需要住在更加“現代化”和“容易照料”的地方，於是他做出了一個震驚他朋友們和員工們的決定，——舉家遷往莫佩思（Morpeth）附近的狹小出租房。該房屋位於政府廉租房的正對面，伯尼堅稱自己“對房產沒有興趣”。

早在搬家之時，看起來一向支持丈夫決定的雪莉就顯露出了不滿的跡象。

雪莉希望伯尼退休後能多和家人在一起，但伯尼的“瘋狂”卻導致他每天有12小時在爲慈善事業工作，家人們的存在感則幾乎爲零。

9月20日，雪莉補充道，“慈善事業是他人生的全部。我經常告訴他，我們還有很多事情要考慮，但他的優先項永遠都是慈善、慈善、還是慈善。”2011年，雪莉從一位美髮師處得知，伯尼在紐卡斯爾的斯福斯（Gosforth）買了一套房子，而她並不知情。“我覺得他已經在爲這段婚姻的結束做準備了，他只是等着我自己去發現而已。”

據雪莉稱，不久後伯尼就告訴她他們的婚姻已經走到了盡頭，並很快搬到他慈善工作室樓上的公寓居住。2012年，伯尼與雪莉離了婚。

但伯尼卻不認同這種說法，“我從沒打算在那套房子居住。我是爲了慈善工作纔買下那套房子。”現在，伯尼還是會定期去看他們的孩子，但孩子們將不會從伯尼處得到分毫金錢。

伯尼稱，“我原本有足夠的金錢安置他們的生活，但我覺得這種做法可能不對，孩子們應該自食其力。”

21日晚，伯尼在英國某電視節目中做客。節目並沒有提及伯尼的婚姻，但種種跡象表明伯尼目前確實是單身。

當被問及是否給自己留有部分財富時，伯尼的回答是否定的。“我沒給自己留下任何財富。我靠退休金過活，如果我離世的話，剩下的退休金也將全部捐給慈善機構。”