Bill’s old jumper is
a real globetrotter       

By Kirsten Gray ONE EVENING a few months ago Bill Wares (45), from Annan, was in his local pub — the Blue Bell Inn — when a bit of banter started about his green-patterned woollen jersey. Warm and comfortable, it had been one of his favourites for 10 years, but that didn’t stop fellow pub-goer Joyce Wyllie teasing him that it was well past its use-by-date. In the course of the evening, Bill took off the jumper and laid it on a seat beside him, but when he got up to leave a short while later it was nowhere to be seen. Mystified, he asked if anyone knew what had happened to it — and suddenly everyone started roaring with laughter. Realising someone had hidden it, he stomped off home.

£1 price tag And a week later it still hadn’t turned up. Little did he know it had been hanging in the nearby charity shop where CHAS fund-raiser Joyce works, with a £1 price tag on it. But the £80 jersey didn’t sell even at that knock-down price. That didn’t surprise Joyce, but it did give her an idea. Nine days after the garment went missing, Bill popped in to the Blue Bell for a quick pint and was handed a postcard from behind the bar. On the front was a picture of the Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery and Tibetan Centre near the Borders village of Eskdalemuir. Curious, Bill turned the card over. To his disbelief the message was signed, “The Jumper”, which was seemingly visiting the Buddhist retreat. Now Bill was certain someone was pulling the wool over his eyes — but who? A few days later, another postcard arrived at the Blue Bell Inn for him, this time from Ireland. It seemed the jumper had decided to go on its travels. Since then Bill has received a post-marked card updating him every couple of days on his jumper’s travels. 82 postcards He’s now received a staggering 82, from as far afield as New Zealand and Alaska. Rumour has it though, he’s about to receive a ransom note for a four- figure sum of money. The jumper has been kidnapped on its travels and if Bill doesn’t pay up, first its label will be cut off, then it will be unravelled row by row. And guess where the money will go — our CHAS campaign, of course. Joyce won’t reveal the jumper’s whereabouts, but she said, “Bill’s jumper is the talk of the town. “It all started as a joke but it has escalated. “So many people have become involved in helping it on its travels. “It’s been great fun and, just as these postcards have been bringing sunshine into our lives, we hope we can help bring sunshine into the lives of the children and families who will go to Robin House.” Now Bill’s promising to do everything he can to raise the ransom money and get it back before winter arrives — even if that means calling on the help of those jokers who got him in this mess in the first place.

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