Hugh Grant and wife Anna Eberstein donate £10,000 to plumbing appeal
James Anderson, Depher
Hollywood actor Hugh Grant and his TV producer wife Anna Eberstein have been praised for donating £10,000 to an organisation in Burnley which provides free plumbing to vulnerable people.
Former Merchant Ivory poster boy Hugh Grant has had quite the career journey since the days of snogging Andie MacDowell in the pouring rain (without noticing). After a few bumps in the road here and there, the dashing bloke with the middle-name ‘Mungo’ has gone on to become one of the most loved and respected elder statesmen of British comic acting – and something of a socially motivated political firebrand; a fierce critic of Brexit, and instrumental in turning the tables against tabloid phone hacking. And now he’s put his money where his elegantly articulating mouth is, in a move described as "humbling and heavenly".
As reported around the world, on Saturday 24 September, Grant and his wife Anna Eberstein donated £10,000 to an organisation that provides free plumbing to the vulnerable, during the cost-of-living crisis.
Depher – it stands for Disability and Elderly Plumbing and Heating Emergency Repair – was founded in 2017 by Burnley-based plumber James Anderson, who first made headlines after attention refusing to charge an elderly customer for work on her boiler, and in the face of so many vulnerable people struggling with poor heating and plumbing. As a Community Interest Company (CIC), Depher relies on donations to provide free services during the winter months.
Grant, who Anderson calls a "foundation and rock”, has so far contributed £55,000 over the past year. "But this time with it being from Anna as well, it feels more personal as it's from one family to others," said Anderson. "It's been humbling and heavenly."
As he told BBC Breakfast, "All the time, people are coming for food, gas, electric – the plumbing and heating obviously, because now it's getting colder. And we're getting a lot of people asking for other help – with building issues, debts, loan sharks." The generous donation is a real shot in the arm for Anderson, who says he hasn’t taken a salary since the start of the first lockdown, and at one point feared Depher would have to be shut down, due to a lack of funding caused by the pandemic.
And the plumber dismissed the tax cuts announced by Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng in his mini-budget as irrelevant. "There's going to be a lot of people left out in the cold and a lot of people are going to be left to die if the government don't do it correctly," he said.