I’m pleased for life’s Lotto millionaires but I wish they’d show some imagination

AT the beginning of this year a man who had just become £33million richer turned to me and asked: ‘Well, what would you do with it?’

Despite strong views on this subject, I was momentarily tongue-tied. I was supposed to be the one asking the questions.

David Martin was supposed to be the exultant National Lottery winner entertaining middle-income daydreamers everywhere by telling us how he told the man in the Lamborghini showroom: ‘I’ll have the red one.’

Instead Mr Martin and his wife Carol seemed almost overcome with trepidation. ‘What have we done?’ the wife had asked her husband in a strangled whisper as they confirmed their numbers at home in Hawick, Roxburghshire.

Later, as they clinked champagne glasses for the Press, he revealed that he quite fancied a new pair of brogues. She said it may be time to push the boat out and replace their old Ford Fiesta.

I never did get to share with them my ideas for their £33million.

This week another Scottish couple, John and Alison Doherty, toasted the more modest, though by no means unwelcome, lotto jackpot of £14.6million.

They say they would like to watch a Formula 1 race live – it’s their dream – oh, and their daughter Laura would quite like a new goldfish.

And if anyone wondered why plumber Mr Doherty disappeared a bit sharpish after the press conference to announce his new multi-millionaire status, it was because he had a boiler breakdown to go out on. There were another three plumbing jobs the following morning and more in the afternoon.

In the fullness of time, he says, maybe he will cut down to four days a week.

Now, I have never met the Doherty family. I am conscious, too, that they have not sought advice from me on how to spend their money.

But in the 22 years since the National Lottery was launched it has been my solemn and, at times, wretched duty as a journalist to meet many jackpot winners and acquaint myself with their spending plans.

Obscenely

I am just saying we all have our breaking points. I felt something snap somewhere around the time I read about Laura’s new goldfish. And so I can hold my silence no more. With all due respect to everyone concerned, I say this: What is WRONG with these people?

Why does nobody seem to know what to do with obscenely large sums of money? We are talking about wads of cash so plentiful that the media coined a term – life-changing – to characterise them. Still people don’t take the hint.

There are those who understand ‘life-changing’ to mean their newfound ability to stock up on chunky jewellery and fuchsia blazers or overpriced handbags from pretentious emporiums for the ladies. Some think it is about being able to splurge £14,000 on a watch like Pippa’s, untrouser five times that much on a range-topping Beemer or even buy a boat.

All complete madness. In the case of the cabin cruiser, you would be cheaper hiring one every time you wanted to go to sea and, while you were out there, chucking a few rolls of tens over the side.

No, the response I have waited all those years to hear from a Lottery jackpot winner has little to do with material possessions. Truth is, many of us already have most of the material things we want and everything we need, which is why Mr Martin thinks of a fine new pair of brogues.

Nor did I wait two decades to watch newly-minted winning ticket wavers carry on in their jobs as if nothing had happened, although I salute the nobility of honest toil in the face of wildest dreams coming true.

To the question ‘what will you spend your millions on?’ I am looking for only one word. I am waiting for the first Lottery winner, on hearing the inquiry, to lean back in his or her chair, smile beatifically and say: ‘Freedom.’

We live in febrile political times. We are, most of us, corks tossed on an ocean made stormy by gale force windbags.

We watched as men such as Alex Salmond made marginal political ideas mainstream, then we witnessed the tidal wave which almost carried independence ashore.

Across the pond, we spy a bronzed billionaire engaged in a vendetta against common sense and promising to make America great again. What he cannot achieve himself, he will leave to his family ‘cabinet’ of assorted gormless offspring and a future First Lady so gushingly sincere about her adopted homeland she had to thieve one of the present First Lady’s speeches to convey it.

Freedom

And we come to realise that, sometimes, no amount of facts and reason and well-made points are enough to stop a situation going south. Sometimes we just need to get out of the way.

So, Mr Martin, with your £33million I’d stop being a cork on the surf whipped up by blusterers. I’d start being the captain of my own ship. I’d buy the freedom to be in the place of my choosing as often as humanly possible.

Waving a cheerful au revoir to my employers – who, it has to be said, were there in a big way when I needed them – I’d get the coast to coast American road trip out of the way early. Best that way, for in a few months’ time relations with the American electorate may be broken beyond any immediate wish to repair them.

After that, winter in Majorca, I should think, with occasional return visits to the old country sprinkled in. I do still love the place – and suspect my fondness for Scotland would grow the more often I were able to avert my eyes at the gory bits and declare: ‘Right, I’m off.’

Anyway, heigh ho … same time next week?