It's either Shanks new pony... or Bo-Peep's pizza delivery!

MANY YEARS ago I was presented with a fishing rod from my 'friends' on which was inscribed the motto: 

'Better to be lucky than good!'

Well, that was certainly the case for Lanarkshire's Beltex queen, Alice Shanks, of Bowmanhurst, Carluke, during the festive season, when she bought a handful of tickets for the annual Christmas charity prize draw in her favourite Italian restaurant, Guidi's, in Airdrie.

The upshot is - much to the chagrin of her brother-in-law who had spent hundreds with the intent of winning it - Alice won the main prize of a very unfarmery-like Vespa scooter. It was poignant, too, as this was the very place that she first met her future husband, the late and great Gavin Shanks.

Alice plans to keep the wee buzz bomb as she reckons that it'll be a much quicker and more environmentally friendly way of getting around the sheep in the mornings, rather than using the Range Rover! However, The Raider's mind boggles at the though of Alice and her fur coat whizzing along with a bag of sheep feeding on the back!