CHRISTMAS BONUS
In 1920, eight-year-old Dorothy Grant was given a modest artificial Christmas tree, with just 25 rather sparse branches. Grant kept the tree until her death at the age of 101 in 2014, when it passed to her daughter Shirley Hall. Just before Christmas 2023, Hall, now 84, put the 31in (79cm) tree, which she described as a “humble reminder of 1920s life”, up for sale through Hansons Auctioneers in Banbury, Oxfordshire, where it surprised everyone by selling for £2,600, against a presale estimate of just £60 to £80. Hansons described the result as an “astonishing” price for “the humblest Christmas tree in the world”. Auctioneer Charles Hanson said that the tree probably came
