WE always knew our readers were kind hearted. But we were amazed at the response to our story last week about 93-year-old Mrs Daisy Rogers who was conned out of her heating bill money by a callous fraudster.

Offers to pay Daisy's bill, as well as donations of cash, flooded The Citizen office on Friday and Monday.

But our amazement was nothing compared to Daisy's who couldn't believe that people were so kind these days.

Daisy didn't want any money but eventually relented when she heard about the scale of the response.

"I thought that whole era had passed," said Daisy. "I filled up when I heard. In fact I cried. You hear so many bad stories these days, you don't think there's all these good people about.

"I just want to say how grateful I am to those people. They've really made me see how many good people there are again. They will be in my prayers."

Daisy agreed to allow her story to appear in the Citizen so that others wouldn't be duped by the clever con man who tricked her out of her heating bill cash.

The 'official looking man' posed as a council smoke alarm installer and wore an identification badge. After he gained access he started measuring up and stole her purse when she wasn't looking. He made off with £55, a much-treasured photograph of Daisy's late husband, Joe and a religious medal she had carried around since she was young.

The con man was male, white, 40/50 years, 5ft 10ins to 6ft tall, square shaped face, stubbly beard, wearing a tweed coloured woolly hat pulled down over the ears, black navy donkey jacket buttoned up to the neck. Anyone with any information should contact the police on 01524 63333.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.