An unusual donation At Billingshurst Lions Bookshop
There is an old saying that you should never judge a book by its cover. This was certainly the case in a recent batch of books donated to the Billingshurst & District Lions Charity Bookshop in Jengers Mead. What was titled The New English Dictionary turned out to be anything but.
All book donations are checked on arrival for saleability, and this particular “book” was about to be discarded; but, something about the feel and its unusually white pages, made Lion Richard Melcio take a second look. Opening it up revealed a cleverly designed safe deposit box which contained, to his amazement, numerous bank statements, notes and - £170.00 in cash!
Richard then turned detective and set about tracing the owner. From the name and address on the Bank Statements he visited an address in West Chiltington, where an elderly lady answered the door. However, it transpired that this lady had bought the house from the lady named on the statements some time ago in September, but had no details of a forwarding address. Fortunately, her son, who lived next door, remembered the name of the estate agent handling the sale, enabling Richard to continue the investigation.
The estate Aaent was very helpful and kindly provided the name and contact details for the “dictionary” owner’s son, Andy Gray. Initially, Andy was quite elusive, but Richard eventually tracked him down and you can see from the photograph, how pleased he was to receive the “book”.
Like all good detective stories, the mystery was finally solved; with Richard commenting afterwards that he was pleased this particular version of The New English Dictionary was now back in “safe” hands!