YOU’D think in these straitened days it would be easy to give away money. But apparently not so. Because a Worcester charitable trust with about £10,000 of largesse to distribute every year can’t find enough takers.

There are conditions naturally.

You’re not supposed to spend it on booze, wild nights and fast cars, although if that aids your recovery from medical treatment, then I suppose the board of trustees might be honour bound to consider it.

For that is what the money deposited in the Willis Trust is for – to finance a period of convalescence for people living within the city of Worcester following medical treatment.

When it was set up in 1942, the idea was probably a week in Frinton or Bournemouth, but times change and who’s to say a weekend clubbing in Ibiza in 2009 wouldn’t give the spirits an equal lift. If they could stand it.

John Wagstaff, the trust’s clerk, says: “We will consider anything, but the money has to be spent according to the rules. No one says you have to go to the seaside.

The Lake District or the Cotswolds are ideal places to relax and recuperate.”

The trust is doing its best to offload.

“We have advertised in the paper and put notices in the hospital and in doctors’ waiting rooms, but the take-up is diminishing,” said Mr Wagstaff.

“We get very few applications now. I don’t know whether people can’t be bothered to apply or what it is. We do need to be distributing more money.”

The average grant is about £700, which is a ballpark figure calculated to cover a week’s holiday at the seaside for the claimant and a carer. The money is paid to the venue and not the individual to prevent the booze and fags scenario, although travel costs will be considered too.

The trust has its roots in the Willis family, who were very successful boot and shoe manufacturers in Worcester for more than a century and one of the best known in the UK.

JF Willis, as the company styled itself, had two factories in the city, first in Sidbury and later at the Cinderella Works in Bransford Road, St John’s.

It enjoyed a reputation as a benevolent employer and in 1889, when the business had been in existence for 35 years, the workforce entertained the heads of the firm to a dinner at the Albion Inn, Bath Road, rather a roll reversal of the norm.

At the dinner it was said that Messrs Willis were paying the best wholesale wages in the country, which was presumably why the workers could afford to foot the bill.

The end of the Willis line in Worcester came in 1960, when it sold its Cinderella factory to Great Universal Stores, owners of the Kays catalogue enterprise.

Long before that though, in 1942, as Britain was in the depths of the Second World War, Miss Constance Sarah Finch had died in Norwich.

Miss Finch is believed to have been a grand-daughter of one of the firm’s founders Henry Willis and was certainly wealthy. She left £60,000, a considerable amount in the early 1940s when the average cost of a private house was £500.

With part of the money, the executors set up a nursing trust in Norwich and also established the Willis Trust in Worcester with the aim of helping citizens of the city convalesce after surgery or illness.

There has been a remarkable line of continuity in the trust’s administration. The original trust deed was drawn up by Worcester solicitor Captain Walter Curtler on November 30, 1942 and he remained in post until October 25, 1969, when he handed over to his practice partner Robert Hallmark.

In 1994, Mr Hallmark was succeeded by his son David.

Likewise, the trust’s first clerk was Worcester accountant Alex Bowen. He continued until 1966, when he landed over to his compatriot John Arthur Wagstaff, who in turn handed over to his son John Ivan Wagstaff in 1986.

“It is an unusual problem to have,” Mr Wagstaff said. “We have about £10,000 to distribute from the Trust each year on a rolling programme, depending, of course, on the income from the endowment fund, but we can’t find enough applicants.”

A few years ago the trust did give £70,00 to the new St Richard’s Hospice in Worcester to support its work with patients from the city, but even publicity surrounding that failed to elicit much response.

It is hard to imagine people don’t want a free holiday when they’re feeling down, so if this story has stirred you into action, ring John Wagstaff on 01905 355659 for an application form. Remember though, you must live in Worcester.