WHEN York estate agent Edward Waterson received a request for sales particulars from a small town on Africa's Skeleton Coast, he decided to deliver them by hand.
It involved a journey of more than 6,000 miles, including the last 100 miles on foot through the Namib desert.
Edward, the residential sales partner in the York office of Carter Jonas, had been asked by Ilse Rust of the Swakopmund Museum for particulars of Appleton Hall, near Kirkbymoorside.
He wanted more information for his archives about the hall's historic connections with the guano trade which once thrived off the remote Skeleton Coast.
The hall was built in 1860 by Joseph Shepherd on the proceeds of exploiting the bird deposits off the African coast for fertiliser. He had run away to sea from Appleton-le-Moors at the age of 12 and returned in triumph to build the mansion in the latest Italian palazzo style.
As it happened Edward was about to set off on a trek to raise money for charity and slipped two sets of historic particulars about Appleton Hall into his backpack, which he carried through the arid wastes.
Edward said: "Miss Rust was delighted when I handed the details over.
"Delivering them by hand meant that I was able to save postage, which appealed to the Yorkshireman in me.
"At the same time I raised more than £6,000 for the Mines Advisory Group, the Nobel Prize winning charity which clears land mines and unexploded bombs in nearby Angola and other parts of the world."
Updated: 10:27 Tuesday, November 13, 2001
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