Customers repay store owner’s trust

An English shopkeeper who wanted the day after Christmas off kept his store open with a sign telling customers to take what they needed and leave the money.

Tom Algie, who owns Practically Everything, a store catering to do-it-yourselfers in the village of Settle in Yorkshire, told The Daily Mail that he used a funnel and cereal box to create a container for payments. The next day, he found 187 pounds ($270) in the box.

The day after Christmas, known as Boxing Day, is a major holiday in England. Algie said that he wanted to spend the day with his family and to give his employees the day off as well.

Settle is a lovely quiet rural town and there’s never any trouble here. I put my faith in my customers and I wasn’t disappointed, he said. It was a spur of the moment decision, I just wanted to spend the holidays with my family but thought it would be quite nice to open up the shop, so this seemed like a good solution.