The Ottawa Journal from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • Page 114

WleilDiWii Well, there's that house you'd always dreamed and the trip to Europe, IF ONLY I could win the Irish Sweepstakes Most people, probably, have thought of the Irish Hospital Sweepstakes as the miraculous solution to all their problems and mentally spent the top prize of $150,000 or so. Instant happiness for the price of 1 aticket. The sweepstakes, based on races in England and Ireland, have paid out more than $500, million in prizes since they were founded in 1930 to help finance hospitals in Eire. Even though the sale of tickets is illegal almost everywhere, they're sold in 147 countries. 1 For hundreds of Canadians, a sweepstakes ticket has been a dream come true.

A tintish Columbia widowwith six children won $26,000 a year ago; a launtfress in Ottawa picked up a top prize of $130,000 earlier this year. Two years, ago top prize-winners in Canada included a 61 -year-old priest from Ontario and a Nova Scotia father of nine. Understandably, most winners avoid publicity because it means that hordes of people will descend on them, begging for money. But because of the interest in state-run lotteries, we decided to track down some people who won big prizes a few years ago, to see how the money has changed their lives. We found out that many of them are still reluctant to talk, even though their prize money had helped them realize life-long ambitions: For instance, 'there's the woman from western Canada who usedi.

part of her Winnings to" put boor foreign strident nhroughruniversityr "Burtere7arehe-riexnDfvro their dream or at least part of it come true. I 10 Weekend Magazine July 18, 1970 The $140,000 Is Still Growing Lome Fleming kept his cool when he reaped $140,000 out of the Irish Sweepstakes in August, 1956. Now 56, Fleming recalls that the first thing he did was to arrange to have the moneydepps-ited with the Montreal Trust Company. "I wasn't poor by any means," Fleming said. "I had a few bonds around and was working as the manager of the Strand Theatre here in Mont-real." Fleming said he worked for a year before even touching the money, then he took a three-month holiday that cost him about $5,000.

"The trip took me down the West coast of the United States and then back to my cottage near Mont Tremblant where I spent about a month fishing my favorite sport." Fleming said he had bought the cottage before his big win and the only addition to it out of the 1 40,000 was $2,700 for a 1 4-foot runabout and a 45-horsepower motor. He said he already had an automobile and the only other expense was the purchase of a $40,000 home in the Town of Mount Royal, one of the Montreal area's' better residential districts, and he lives to this day with his mother, Mrs. Bridgit Fleming, 89. Asked why he never, married, Fleming said, "I was married to the theatre for more than 25 years, aside from my seven years in the RCAF, and that took up most of my time days and nights." Perhaps it was in the RCAF that Fleming teamed the kind of nerve it takes to win 1 40,000 and still keep cool. He joined in 1939 and retired as flight lieutenant in 1946.

During his RCAF tour hebombed Germany 65 times, first in Wellingtons and finally in the gianji Lancasters. Fleming said he had no trouble from green-eyed relatives upon winning the money; all of it, came from friends or complete strangers like the lady who wanted him to finance her daughter's trip to Canada from Estonia. "The worst were the would-be investors who came up with all kinds of quick-money deals. My answer finally became routine if it's so good, why don't you invest in it Fleming finally invested the i monev in i blue hiptockthroughthe-MontreaHrrushwhere it- -remains-to-this-ayrpaying-dividendsandin--creasing in size. 1 "I now have just about as much as I did when I won the money," said Fleming, who now works as a salesman for a Ford dealer-chin "it'c ma kept paying dividends although the market is down now so 1 think I'll just leave it where it A I i He Won Lost His Family The album on the stereo in the penthouse suite overlooking Vancouver's English Bay was called A Fistful Of Dollars.

Bill Hancock put down the earphones through which he had been listening and remembered what several fists fuirbf dollars had done for him. He was a $350-a-month optical mechanic on that day in October, 1964 when he listened to a commentary on a race being run in England and realized'he was the winner of $150,000 in the Irish Sweep. With his wife, Robina, and two young children, Glen and Tod, he was living in a small frame home rented from his grandfather for a nominal 1 7 a month. The family had an old hulk of a car and Mrs. Hancock dreamed of the day when she could pay a holiday visit to her birthplace in Scotland.

The first thing Bill did was to take a week off work "I needed that to straighten myself out and get away from people." Then it ame time to make dreams come true. A new moving into an apartment while the family looked around for a new house; a trip to Scotland, with visits to England, France and Germany thrown in; a hunting foray in Alaska. About a year after the win, the Hancocks fountl a spanking new house and bought it. And everything they could think of to go in it. It was having everything that brought his dream world crashing down, Bill now believes.

"My wife got bored with doing nothing we had everything and there was nothing for her to do she looked for something-and I could not supply it," he said sadly. The result was that the Hancocks decidedto part company Jbr Bill moved into the stayed rn-IhappierTiowT-hdon'tTcally-thinksor Sure, I can afford to go hunting whenever I.