The multi-millionaire who gave away £16m... then lost his home, his possessions and his wife
Kindhearted Brian Burnie was so grateful when his wife recovered from cancer that he developed an addiction to helping other sufferers, but his actions have resulted in the end of his marriage
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A multi-millionaire who gave away his entire fortune has split with his wife after his Good Samaritan act destroyed their 30-year marriage.
It’s the ironic twist in the tale of a bizarre story which started when big-hearted Brian Burnie’s beloved wife Shirley fell ill with breast cancer.
The philanthropist was so delighted when she made a full recovery that he developed an addiction to helping cancer sufferers just like her.
Yet as the 70-year-old sold off their £16million mansion, auctioned their belongings and ploughed all the proceeds into his own cancer charity in 2009, the love of his life was at the end of her tether.
Although the pair failed to see eye-to-eye on his non-profit venture Daft As A Brush, Brian maintained all he needed was his family, publicly declaring at the time: “I’ve no interest in bricks and mortar. I’ve no interest in possessions.”
But four years after his selfless acts shocked and inspired the nation in equal measure, he also unintentionally lost the woman who had inspired him.
Speaking for the first time since the split, Shirley reveals: “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.
“It took over his life, becoming more important than anything else to him. 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.”
After selling off their 10-acre luxury estate Doxford Hall, complete with spa and hotel boasting a swimming pool and manicured lawns, the couple moved into a tiny rented terrace house in nearby Morpeth, Northumberland, opposite a council estate.
Brian’s runaround became a battered old Ford Fiesta.
He envisaged a simple existence where the pair would enjoy each other’s company rather than the trappings of wealth.
But an unfortunate chance encounter between his wife and a gossip at the local hairdresser threw his dream into disarray.
“I learned that he had bought a new home in Gosforth without telling me,” says Shirley.
“I confronted him and he admitted it was true. He’d owned it for three months and said nothing. I felt he’d made his preparations for the end of the marriage and waited for me to find out.
“There had to be a reason why he kept that quiet, I believed, and I assumed it must have been because he had decided the marriage was over and he was leaving.”
For heartbroken Shirley it was the final straw after her husband had repeatedly put his charity work before her since she won her own cancer battle.
In a burst of refreshing honesty after getting the all-clear, she said: “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. I’m sick of bloody charity and the hard work — we all are.”
Yet Brian was so blinded by his new devotion he failed to heed the old adage that charity begins at home.
Having given away all their collective wealth he then embarked on a charity campaign to get cancer patients free travel to and from hospital and cancer screening.
Shirley says that as well as giving up his money he was soon working 12 hours a day and barely seeing his family.
“I felt he had put me in a position where we had to end the marriage,” she says.
They divorced in 2012.
But Brian tells a different story, insisting he never wanted to end their relationship. And he still maintains there was nothing sinister about the purchase of the house.
“I never intended to live in it, I bought it for the charity but it wasn’t right and I had to get different premises,” he told the Sunday Mirror.
“I wish I’d never bought it because I could have put the money to better use.”
He goes on: “We live in a selfish, greedy society. If we can introduce our children to charitable acts at a young age, there is hope that the flame will take in them and they’ll see how much you get from helping others.”
His children are all grown up and he still sees them regularly, even though his actions mean they won’t get a penny.
The eccentric jazz-loving Geordie, who left school with no qualifications aged 15, adds: “I had enough money to set them up for life, but I think that would be wrong.
“Your children have to make their own way.”
The marriage break-up has not surprised everyone. When they married in 1981, Brian insisted they ask for donations to Tyneside Leukaemia Research instead of wedding presents.
And their honeymoon, in a pal’s caravan in Cockermouth, Cumbria, was spent mostly with Brian working and Shirley going out for walks alone.
“I was a war-time baby and my mum and dad made me the way I am. I was born in a bedsit during the Second World War,” Brian says, trying to explain his actions.
“Nobody had much but I grew up knowing that if my mum and dad had food on the table, they’d share it with those around them.”
He never went to university but modestly says he had a “knack for business” that made him a vast fortune over 40 years.
He progressed from grocery delivery boy to builder’s apprentice, to trained engineer, to running his own company, first in construction, then petrochemicals, and later recruitment.
He recalls: “We acquired the lifestyle, Doxford Hall, we lived very well, but nothing gave me as much pleasure as giving it all away.”
It was a trait which made him the perfect man in many women’s eyes – a millionaire with a heart of gold.
Shirley was no different and indulged him in his passion, including hosting a fish and chips lunch for 5,000 war veterans in their walled garden.
But when she was diagnosed with cancer she needed her husband’s charitable nature the most.
Yet no sooner had she secured her place on the long road to recovery than his generosity began to spiral out of control.
What to some may have looked like a touching tribute, Shirley describes as “madness”.
And whereas her husband became known locally as St Brian, she started suffering from charity fatigue. “Each year it just got bigger and bigger — no event was a one-off,” Shirley said at the time of the sale of Doxford Hall.
“I’m happy to do my bit, but if you’re married to someone like Brian, it takes over your life. He sweeps everyone along.”
The tale of the man who had it all, then gave it all away features in TV documentary Jon Richardson Grows Up, on Channel 4 tomorrow at 10.35pm. There is no mention of the couple’s sad split, though it does show Brian living alone in a small flat above Daft As A Brush HQ.
Asked if he kept anything for himself he replies: “Nothing. I live off my pension, even that goes to the charity when I die.”
Shirley says: “Brian has what he wanted. We keep hearing he’s never been happier, which hurts a bit given that we had 30 years of marriage and three children, but he has made his choice.”
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