Chow A Story for a Movie
posted by on December 7 at 9:35 AM
The best medium for the type of sadness at the core of this autumn story is the big screen.
The high court today upheld the final will of a millionaire property magnate who bequeathed £10m to the owners of her favourite Chinese restaurant.This story breaks my heart into fine pieces.Judge Sir Donald Rattee QC dismissed a challenge to Golda “Goldie” Bechal’s will brought by her surviving relatives, five nephews and nieces, who claimed they were entitled to inherit her fortune.
When Bechal died in 2004, aged 88, she left a property fortune based on commercial premises to her long-standing “best friends”, Kim Sing Man and his wife, Bee Lian Man, the owners of the Lian restaurant in Witham, Essex.
The judge held that Bechal, despite her failing memory, appreciated the effect of her will, made in August 1994, in which she left almost her entire fortune to the couple.
…The court heard that the Man family established a restaurant in premises rented from Bechal and her late husband, Simon. A friendship blossomed over several decades, in which the two families enjoyed Christmas Day celebrations and foreign holidays together.
The judge accepted their evidence that Bechal, sad and lonely after the death of her husband and the death of her son Peter at the age of 28, became almost part of their family.
They went on foreign holidays with her and there were regular get-togethers at their restaurant and at her flat in Mayfair, central London.
Kim Sing Man would even deliver Bechal’s favourite Cantonese dish of pickled leeks to her home in Grosvenor Square, London, whenever he was in the capital to buy restaurant supplies.
The judge heard from counsel for the Mans that Bechal’s relationship with her family was strained. She once described them as a “bunch of hooligans”, said Man, 53, under cross-examination. He said she believed they were after her money.
The court heard that by the time she died, Bechal had become close friends with the Mans…
Where does one ask for a correction for a mistake in one of your pretentiously boring articles?
Sad? How? She had a good life with dear friends, and they were rewarded. Her jackass family were left out in the cold where they belong. Justice served.
the greedy family, loving friend theme was done already by Eastwood in million dollar baby. the film also had the added bonus themes of boxing, death with dignity and loneliness.
@1, mail it to me, charles@thestranger.com
I wish this was common practice. It would cut down on the likelihood of the children of rich parents being arrogant dicks like they quite often are (though not always) are.
Sounds like the Mans went after her money and got it. Sad indeed.
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