'We're always on the lookout for each other'

Shop owner's £5K for community help

- By Charlie Bradley

A LOTTERY retailer has won £5,000 for the difference she makes to her community after saving a customer who had collapsed at home.

Convenience store owner Debbie Gale, 45, was worried when her postman reported he was getting no answer at an elderly customer's door.

The retired police officer said: "I gathered a couple of people and we went straight round to this poor woman's house. There was no answer so we broke it down.

"It was a good job we did because she had collapsed and had been lying on the floor for five days.

"She was taken to hospital and made a good recovery."

Contribution

Debbie added: "That's what the village is like, we are always on the lookout for each other."

She has been running the Siop y Pentre in Llanfair Talhaiarn, Wales, for three years. Her mother worked for the previous owners and as a child, Debbie would help out, before getting a Saturday job there.

She went on to study law and had a career with the police in Sussex and London, but returned to North Wales after retiring from emergency service work due to injury.