“SWEEP” WINNER’S WORRIES

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 April 1931, Page 11

“SWEEP” WINNER’S WORRIES

“DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION.” Thousands of letters; hundreds of begging 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 sweepstake 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 my 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 hope that when I go back home my sweepstake success iwill. be forgotten.” Mrs Thompson travelled in -the liner without her name being known, to save being worried on the voyage. Her name was omitted from the list of passengers. “No one can have any idea of what winning a big sweepstalte prize means unless they have suffered it,” said. Mrs

Thompson’s daughter Muriel, to a representative of the Daily Express. “My mother slipped away quietly 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 seeined to come to us. and then, in addition, there was the host of applications. Why, even my own wedding, had to be postponed because of the publicity.” '