Charities left fortune in will

A WIDOW who amassed a £5.7 million fortune in cash, shares, bonds and property has left most of it to charity.

Dorothy Pustula died last year at the age of 82, having lived alone at her home in Edinburgh's Mayfield Terrace since the death of her husband in the late 1980s.

After gifting about 500,000 to friends and family, Mrs Pustula left instructions for the rest of the money to be divided equally between four charities: the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, the United Nation's children's fund Unicef, the National Trust for Scotland and the Children's Hospice Association Scotland. Each will receive about 1.3m.

Linda Aitken, legacy manager for the RNLI in Scotland, said: "We are extremely grateful."