OFFER TO OLD FRIEND

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 42, 13 November 1936, Page 10

OFFER TO OLD FRIEND

Visit to London With £50,000 Prize-winner

LUCK COMES TO MAN LN SOLDIERS’ CAMP

Dominion Special Service

J’tiraparnuinu, November 12,

To set out in the morning with pick and shovel for the routine day's work of a member of a gang of workers in a returned soldiers’ unemployment camp and to drive back to camp before the morning was out, booked for a trip to London to sec the coronation, was the experience of Mr. W. Salmon, of the Beach Road Unemployment Camp, Paraparamnu, who lias the good fortune to be a valued friend and war comrade of Mr. M alter Devon, the winner of the £50.000 .Melbourne Cup sweepstake. Mr. Devon visited the little canvas unemployment camp settlement on the Beach Road in search of Mr. Salmond, an old friend, who has been through various ups and downs with him during the depression, and who had done him some good turns, particularly ata time Mr. Devon was in hospital and unable to earn anything.

The visitor was directed to a job Mr. Salmond and a gang were engaged on on tlic outskirts of Paraparaumu township. Mr. Devon drove out ami found his friend aud greetings and congratulations over, told him he had better put on his coat and come down to the camp and sign off as he was going to stand him a trip to London to see the coronation. Mr. Salmon “downed tools’’ with enthusiasm, and without loss of time the formalities of signing off the strength of the unemployment camp were completed and the prospective tourists were driving away from Paraparaumu to Masterton —a first move in the direction of London and the coronation.

“It seems a coincidence that this should have happened on Armistice Day, a few minutes after all of us at the camp had observed the two minutes’ silence,” Mr. Salmond said later. When he goes Horn* for the Coronation Mr. Salmond will have the opportunity of visiting his people, whom he has not seen since 1920. NOT THROWING MONEY AWAY Mr. Devon Says He Knows Its Value Dominion Special Service. Mastertoil, November 12. In conversation with "The Dominion” to-night, Mr. Devon remarked that he had received letters from persons he had never heard of before asking for financial assistance and inviting him to invest his money in various ways. “I cannot understand people writing this sort of letter,” he said. "They must think I am going to throw my money away.” An amusing incident, which was, however, embarrassing to the women concerned in it, was related by Mr. Devon. Yesterday he was sitting in a train near t.wo women who were discussing his good fortune. One womau mentioned the name of a prominent South Wairarapa citizen, aud remarked to her companion that he had said it was a pity that a working man like Mr. Devon should have won such a largo sum. "Mr. Blank says that he will only squander it,” the woman said. Both were astonished when the man sitting in front of them turned round and told them who he was. “You can tell the gentleman whose name you mentioned that I know the value of money and know what should be done with it,” he said to them.