A gardener from Birmingham, England says he had no choice, but to flee from his wife of three years, who he blames for forcing him to live in the woods for a decade.
That's according to Emmaus Greenwich, a homeless shelter in London, where Malcolm Applegate finally resurfaced.
The 62-year-old man says “the more work I took on, the angrier my wife got – she didn’t like me being out of the house for long periods of time.”
While he claims he tried to make the relationship work, he said it just wasn't meant to be.
“Without a word to anyone, not even family, I packed up and left,” he said. “I went missing for ten years.”
Applegate continued gardening for a community center while living in the woods.
Since resurfacing, he has contacted his sister, who he said “assumed [he] was dead.”
Applegate said they had an emotional reunion.
“It had been a decade since I’d last seen her, and in that time she had been to all of the Salvation Army hostels in the South trying to find me … I wrote her a letter once I was settled in Greenwich and she phoned me up, in floods of tears. We now have a great relationship again.”
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