PLAGUE OF RICHES

Evening Star, Issue 20780, 30 April 1931, Page 2

PLAGUE OF RICHES

"SWEEP" WINNER’S WORRIES j • “ DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION." | Thousands of letters; hundreds of begginjg callers; a never-silent, telephone; life a nightmare of interruption. All that because Mrs Selina Thompson, proprietress of the Station Hotel, Worksop, England, won a £20,000 prize in the Irish National Sweepstake on the Manchester November Handicap. The troubles that followed that win helped to drive Mrs Thompson to Canada on a holiday to forget the disadvantage of being a sweepstako winner.

A recent message from Halifax, Nova Scotia, reports, that Mrs Thompson had landed there from the liner Adriatic to escape fortune hunters in England. “ I was driven, to distraction by the people who pestered me after |ny win in the Manchester November Handicap.” said Mrs Thompson, “ and so I chose the opportunity of coming to Canada on a holiday to see my sister. I hoj>o that when I go back home my sweepstake success will be' forgotten.” Mrs Thompson travelled in the liner without, her name being known, to save being worried on Hie voyage. Her name was omitted from the list of passengers. “ No one can have any idea of what winning a big sweepstake prize means unless they have suffered it,” said Mrs Thompson’s daughter Muriel to a representative of the ‘Daily Express.’ " My mother slipped quietly away to Canada to be out of all the trouble. " Life was almost impossible after mother's win. We were inundated with letters and callers. Everybody in England with something > to sell or with some scheme which needed financing seemed to come to us, and then, in addition, there was the host of charitable applications. “ Why, even my own wedding had to be postponed because of the publicity.” _