STRANGE LIFE STORY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22098, 31 October 1933, Page 10

STRANGE LIFE STORY

MAN WHO BROKE THE BANK TRICK WITH GOLF BALL, Every night a. tall, white-haired man stands in a crowded street in the West End of London, popping a golf ball into his mouth, chewing it and producing it from behind his ear. Thousands of Londoners see him. Some give him money; few know his story. The man is Walter Watt, ex-music-hall artist. His father was head carpenter at the old Crystal Palace. Walter Watt, who is TO, used to be known as Zanfrellas, the acrobat. He went on the halls when he was 20. He started street performing two years ago, when he had been out of work for months. ■ Mr Watt stood on the pavement in despair. Then he took a golf ball out of his pockety “ swallowed ” it> produced it from his right ear—a childhood trick. A man saw him) roared with laughter, and gave him 6d. Since then Mr Watt has done this one trick thousands of times. It brings him enough money for bed and food. Mr Watt has had two wives and has two sons and a daughter, all of whom are in America. The sons are in Dawson City and the daughter is a music-hall, contortionist. None of them knows their father is “ broke.” Walter Watt can tell a wonderful life story. He says he broke bronchos in Oregon for two years, then became a trooper in the North-West Mounted Police for another two years. For a while he was Zanfrellas, the acrobat. He owned a cabaret in Alaska during the Klondike gold rush 35 years ago. He also claims that he broke the bank at Monte Carlo. He lost all his money in a gold mine. An old friend of Mr Watt’s wealthy days buys him a Saville Row suit every year. He spends the summer at Ramsgate doing the same tfiek on the sands. He met a girl there, aged 25, a palmist.. He states that he would like to marry, her. She says he will live to be 86.