MAN WHO WON £30,000

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 193, 30 July 1932, Page 3 (Supplement)

MAN WHO WON £30,000

IRISH SWEEPSTAKE TICKET SORRY TALE OF WOE. FRIENDS AND PRIVACY GONE. There is one man in London who ■was not looking forward to the “draw” for the Irish sweepstake on the Derby this year. He wm afraid he might win even a share of a prize.

Twelve months ago he won £30,000, and he has never been happy since. His work has gone, his friends have gone, his privacy has gone, and he has not the slightest idea what to do with himself. Incidentally, a lot of the mongy has gone.

A London writer says:—l found the man working in the garden of the apartment house in which he lives in North London. He looked at me almost furtively when I 'spoke to him, and for a few moments he would not admit his identity.

Then he led me into the early-Victo-nan parlour and pledged me to conceal hjs name. He could not have been more concerned if the police had been searching for him. “Never,” he began, “win a sweep. If you unfortunately do don't let any one take your photo. If you do it’s all up. You’ll never be happy again. Wherever you go you’ll be found out. I thought I was lucky when I won, but I at once found work impossible.” The winner is a skilled workman, who was earning about £lO a week in the city.

My mates,” the man went on, “were not pleased. There were some Socialists and Communists among them, and they wanted to work on the ‘what’s yours is mine’ principle. They said it was unfair for me with my thousands to go on working when there

were other men who could do with the job. In a few days it became so miser, able that I had to give up work. “Then letters came to me in sacks, letters from all parts of the world, begging letters, letters from institutions and charity organisations, letters offering to invest the money for me. Telegrams poured in, too. “People pointed at me in the street and stood outside my house, staring at the window jn the hope of seeing me, or waiting for me to come out. Relatives I had never known turned up for ‘thejr share.’

“Why, I lost lots of my pals because they would tell people I was the man who won £30,000. It became so bad that I wanted to go away where nobody would know me, but my wife said she was not going to be put out by a lot of prying strangers. We burned most of the letters but read a few and kept them as curiosities.

“And now it would put the tin hat on it if you printed my name, for it would all begin again. That’s why 1 don’t want to win, although I took a sixpenny share in a ticket this time just to oblige a friend, who said it might bring him luck—heaven help him!

“A sweep winner cannot afford to have a past. If there is anything in his life he is not particularly proud of it is dragged up and broadcast when he wins, and things he hoped were forgotten are in the jimejight again. You just can’t afford to have a past, and your future js spoiled.” The winner of £30,000 stood up and shook me by the hand. “I envy you,” he said. “You have a good job, you have your friends; in your spare time you have nobody to point at you and follow you and pester you. You have an interest in life. Mine is gone.”