A man who wrote about his solitary visit to a pawnshop at the age of five has won An Post's "All Write" letter-writing competition.
Mr Jim Boland, of Ardmore Park, Waterford, was presented with his prize, a Mazda 121, by the chief executive of An Post, Mr John Hynes, at a function in the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, yesterday.
Mr Boland's letter described his attempt to ingratiate himself with his mother after he found and ate an Easter egg a week before Easter. She had pawned the family iron and he thought he would get it back. He found the ticket and payment for it and went to retrieve it.
However, he waited in the pawnshop all day for his name to be called, but it never was. When the shop was due to close the pawnbroker approached him and asked him what he was doing there. When he explained about the iron, and identified it, it emerged that his parents always used another name when visiting the shop.
He got the iron - and another Easter egg.