FORTUNE IN JEWELS

Grey River Argus, 30 May 1938, Page 10

FORTUNE IN JEWELS

i ; RAGGED FLOWER SELLER. 1 LIVED AMID RUBBISH. • LONDON, April 30. A man who dressed in rags, sold 1 (lowers in the - London streets, and barricaded his house, with old junk, J was this week discovered in his tiny ; home ill and starving in [he midst of thousands of pounds worth of jew- ; cilery and banknotes. ( For six .years, Sidney Pollard, now ; 73, has lived in a small apartment ' and a workshop in Camden Town collecting and storing great . quantities , of junk. For a fortnight no one saw ’ him. Then neighbours told the poj’lice, and a sergeant broke in. Inside was a scene of indescribable sqalour. Rags, tins, old iron, papers, antiques lav heaped everywhere as-high as the ceiling. There was'no food in the house, and Pollard was xncarly dead from starvation. , While oxygen was administered to him in hospital, the police sergeant went back to the rooms. Casually he tuned over son.-' cf the rag? on the bed ar.'.l, in the light of his iSrcn saw p?7-i necklaces. Jewels ani all rnann at golden trinkets fa.l to the floor. Scotland Yard' was informed and, after experts had searched among the grime and dust and old junk, thev discovered jewellery worth between £5OOO and £lO,OOO, and over £lOOO in banknotes—some so dirty as to be almost unrecognisable. One of the necklaces alone contained 180 graded pearls. Sidney Pollard was a man haunted by fear. Rumours that his poverty was a cloak to hide his wealth spread in the district. Afraid of attack by gangsters, he barricaded himself in with piles of rubbish.