Liz Jones thanks readers for offers of help after debt disclosure

The newspaper columnist Liz Jones today revealed that she had been sent offers of cash and accommodation by sympathetic readers of her column, to whom she had confessed to being deeply in debt and depressed. The writer was inundated with offers of support, including from a man who earned £46 a week and a woman who wanted to share her "emergency £20". Jones, who is employed by the Daily Mail and is one of the best-paid columnists in the UK, thanked the 4,100 readers who had written to her offering to help her buy food and petrol. "I was in despair. I had no one to turn to … Disillusioned with humanity, I had started to rescue more animals, a compulsion that has also contributed to my financial demise," she wrote . Being in debt was the worst thing she had ever experienced. "When you have no money, people assume it's because you're lazy or profligate. I'd got to the point where I couldn't cope," she wrote. Jones listed some of the readers who had offered to help. One woman said she "could spare £100 a month for five months". A 77-year-old widow on a state pension wrote: "I've won £50 on Premium bonds and I want you to have it, so how can I get it to you?" Another 56-year-old reader, whose husband had given up work to care for her, asked her to accept £50 from them, while another pensioner sent a scratchcard with the note: "I'm a pensioner. I lost my husband 20 years ago, and still miss him every day. I love collies. Love, Joyce, 87 years young!" Jones wrote that if she could not return the money she would donate anything sent to Equine Market Watch, of which she is a patron, and animal charity Wiccaweys, which rescues collies. In the comments below the online version of Jones's article, others were less sympathetic. Harryrobb, from Edinburgh wrote: "The next time that anyone in this newspaper complains about benefit 'scroungers', I will remember Liz Jones and her glorified begging letter taking money from pensioners and the poor to fuel a lifestyle that the overwhelming majority of us couldn't even dream about." At the end of the article Jones noted that "we're always being told we live in a broken society", but that thanks to the offers of help, her faith in human nature had been restored.