Stoney Grove Up for Grabs?If it seemed too
good to be true, chances are, it was. In the spring of 1999, an American academician and a
British commoner with an uncommon taste for the high life, began playing lord and mistress
of the manor. Ann Simmons, the American, soon enough tired of the life of luxury and
privilege that luck had provided her, and ran off to the Caribbean to continue her
care-free lifestyle in a more permissive atmosphere. Recent drug charges, including
serious accusations of international trafficking, may at last end the game for this
unlikely playgirl, who is said to have had at least one village man inspect her prior to
her departure.
Her erstwhile lover, Simon Tinsley, has continued to play the rags-to-riches story in
our midst. Borrowing a page from the book of the black widow and other unsavoury forms of
primitive life, he has begun the process of devouring his mate. Not literally, of course,
but rather through the machinations of the modern legal system. An unnamed source close to
the house has revealed that for months, Tinsley has conducted a secret correspondence with
solicitors whose aim is to win him sole ownership of the lottery winnings and the estate
that they purchased.
His glory days may be cut short, however. The same source obtained previously secret
information confirming that the estate’s resident Hermit, and the illegitimate
grandson of the property’s housekeeper and gardener, are the rightful heirs of Stoney
Grove. For years rumours have circulated that a second will, written by former owner
Montgomery Hall, had been suppressed at his death. Whilst the source cannot confirm this,
he offered this reporter strong evidence of direct lines of descent from the Hall family
to the abovementioned tenants of the current Stoney Grove estate. Legal action on their
behalf is likely pending, meaning that Tinsley may soon be a thing of the past.
