Vera Weisfeld left part of her £6m estate to Moira Anderson Foundation

Vera Weisfeld, the founder of the What Every Woman Wants retail chain, left part of her £6 million estate to charities, including the Moira Anderson Foundation. The gift reflects her lasting connection to the disappearance of Moira, an 11-year-old from Weisfeld’s home town of Coatbridge, who vanished in 1957 and was never found.

Weisfeld died aged 87 in December last year. Legal papers value her estate at £6,016,611; she left £100,000 each to six relatives and Alzheimer Scotland, while the Moira Anderson Foundation, Cash for Kids and Monklands Women’s Aid each received legacies understood to be worth up to £60,000. The foundation supports people affected by childhood sexual abuse and was founded in 2000 by Moira’s family; searches for Moira’s remains in 2013 and 2017 found nothing. Weisfeld and her husband built a chain of 130 shops and sold it in 1990 for a reported £50 million.