FOR most a money box is something we have as a child to save our pocket money, but for Beryl Phillips it has become a near 70-year-old family heirloom.

When Beryl, of Andover Road North, was young the family brought home a collection box for The Children’s Society from Trinity Church, and little did the retired carer know that it would still be with her to this day.

“I thought it was a funny to have to begin with,” she said.

“This little box I must have had it from Sunday School when I was six or seven. When my mum had it we were lucky to get 10 ‘bob’.

“We lived in the Brooks which was a poor area. We were hard up we didn’t have much money to put in it.”

When Beryl got married her mother, Doris Collins, gave it to her so she would be able to continue the family tradition.

Ever since then the 75-year-old has been putting her money into the box, which sits on a sideboard in her living room, to be collected each May.

“When I put pennies in it I think about my mum and dad. My daughter-in-law is going to have it next.”

Beryl says that some years she donates around £50 to the charity but other years it can be more. It is not known how much money she has donated.

Over the years several people from the organisation have visited Beryl’s home to empty the pot, each intrigued about the antique. “The lady who empties it is in her 80s, she used to do All Saints Church as her husband was the vicar,” the grandmother-of-five said.

Beryl is unsure when the box will be emptied next due to the coronavirus crisis, but hopes that her family will continue her legacy.