An elderly woman who found a new £5 note worth £50,000 is donating it to help young people

An elderly woman in Northern Ireland is making up for all the OAPs who voted for Brexit and effed up the young ‘uns’ futures.

After finding one of the new special edition £5 notes worth around £50,000, she donated it to charity saying that she wanted to “help young people”. 

There are only four special fivers originally put into circulation in December, which all bear a tiny etching of Jane Austen on the transparent bit of the note encircled with a different quotation from Emma, Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park by British engraver Graham Short.

Two of the four engraved notes had already been found when the Irish woman, who has asked to remain anonymous, discovered that she had the third.

She promptly sent it back to Short at the THH Gallery in Scotland, with a letter reading: “£5 note enclosed, I don’t need it at my time of life. Please use it to help young people.”

A statement on Short’s website reads: “The lady who found the note has surprised us all by sending it to the gallery and asking that it be used to help young people.

“Graham and the Gallery will be working closely together to do so.”

The statement added that Short and his colleagues were “currently contacting outlets connected to Children in Need to try and give this to a good cause so we can honour the request of the lucky woman who originally discovered the note.

“Stay tuned for more information as the story develops over the following days!”

Short – known as “the world’s smallest engraver” – is famous for once etching the Lord’s Prayer on the head of a pin. The artist came up with the idea for the £5 notes as a way of marking the 200^th anniversary of Austen’s death, as well as celebrating the release of the new money.

He told the BBC that the selfless woman who found the note was adamant that she didn’t want to go public with her good deed.

“She said, ‘I don’t want my picture in the papers… If it sells for a lot of money it will be better if young children could benefit from it,’” he explained.

Artist Tony Huggins-Haig, who launched the project alongside Short, said that around 5,000 people have contacted his gallery falsely claiming to have found one of the special fivers.

There is only one fiver left in circulation with series number AM32885554.

Gentlemen, check your wallets and find out if you’re in for the biggest moral test of your life.