Visitor’s heartfelt thanks after homeless people in Bognor return his money

IIeyuan Llewellyn, 62, from Bournemouth, was visiting Bognor Regis for his granddaughter Knightly Slade’s first birthday on Sunday and briefly left the party to deposit some winnings at a nearby cash machine.

He had won £770 after a series of successful bets on the horse racing and, having collected it the day before, had not yet had the chance to deposit the money into his bank account.

As he approached the cash machine, a gust of wind blew the money out of his hand and sent it spiralling down the street.

“I can’t explain how gutting it was,” he said. “If you’ve ever been punched, you know how to describe it. If you’ve ever won the bingo, you know how to describe it. But I just don’t have the words for this.

“(The notes) looked like seagulls swirling through the air and some of it was on the ground, too.”

Unable to chase the money down himself, a number of homeless people in the town centre helped him collect it back up.

Despite almost all of the money blowing out of his hand, Mr Llwellyn said he only lost around £150.

To his surprise, £620 was returned to him, £10 of which he gave back.

“I just wanted to thank all those people who gave me my money back,” he explained.

“I suppose the moral of the story is not to judge a book by its cover, and that’s why I wanted to thank them.

“Because they’ll see this and know that it happened, and anyone who spots a rogue £20 note in a doorway will know where it came from.

“I really didn’t expect it. It was just completely unbelievable.”