A British man has sold a piece of burned roof tile from a temple in Hiroshima that was damaged by the atomic bomb:

John Watts, 81, said he had been given the roof tile by the priest of Sairenji Temple when he visited Hiroshima in 1952.

“I’m 81 now, single, and nobody from my family seems to want it,” Watts said last week when contacted in his Lincoln home. “Somebody might like it as a memento, and I didn’t want to throw it away.”

When news broke about his plan to auction the roof tile, there was a negative reaction from groups in Hiroshima who thought it was “not something you should sell or buy.” The tile ended up selling for only 42 pounds, but Watts plans to give a 200 pound donation to support groups for A-bomb survivors.

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