BANKRUPT BUTCHER

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 82, 30 December 1937, Page 9

BANKRUPT BUTCHER

Our Own Correspondent.)

Debts Paid By Winnings in Sweepstake

(From

LONDON, Dec. 11. A 51-year- old butcher, John Urry Watts, of Abingdon, Berkshire, was bankrupt. He had one ambition — to pay back the £540 he owed to friends who had tried in vain to save his little business from failure. He found a job, began to save in pennies and halfpennies. The task seemed hopeless. Then one day he fiUed in a football penny pool coupon — the first he had every attempted— and won £315. A few weeks later he hought a share in a sweepstake ticket. Again he won, this time £810. . This week at Oxford County Court John Watts was granted his discharge from bankruptcy. He had paid the Official Received "more than sufficient for full payment for 20/- in the pound." With head held high he went back among the friends who waited to greet him in Abingdon. These were the friends who had stood by John Watts tvhen he was struggling against competition and bad luck; who, when he was forced to bankruptcy, flve years ago, accepted without a murmur of complaint, the 1/7 in the pound which was all he was able to pay them.