THE boss of a Sampford Courtenay building firm has found gold — in Okehampton!

Bob Rendell, of Indian Construction, found a winning 'Golden Brick' in a pallet brought from the Travis Perkins building supplies depot in North Road and has won himself 50 bottles of beer.

The Golden Brick promotion is run by brick manufacturers Ambion to celebrate the fact that it makes more than 170 million bricks each year. There is a Golden Brick in every 10 million produced.

Bob may well consider himself a lucky man — 20 years ago he found himself in a similar situation.

'I was a site manager in Northamptonshire at the time and as I was unloading a lorry full of bricks I found one of the special bricks made to commemorate the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana,' he said.

'In the middle of the brick was the Queen's Crown and Charles and Di's initials — these were even more unusual because they only produced about ten of them.

Bob, who found the first Golden Brick in Devon, is delighted with his prize of 50 bottles of Ambion Ale which has been specially brewed for the promotion and is all ready to try his luck on the lottery this weekend.

'I think I will buy five tickets — my luck might be in!' he said.