Ewe has winning ticket

31 March 2000

Ewe has winning ticket

A NORTH Yorks farmer has come up with an off-beat idea to help raise money towards the £190,000 his village needs to build a new school.

Mark Exelby, of Grewelthorpe, near Ripon, has launched a £1-a-ticket lottery based around which of his 330 ewes will be the last to lamb – and to promote the game he and his wife Lynne have made dozens of life-size wooden sheep which they have placed around the village declaring "It could be ewe!".

"Every sheep has a number and everyone who buys a ticket is given one of the numbers," he said. "Its a novel way of raising funds which seems to have captured peoples imaginations. Its getting the whole community involved." &#42