Our£1000 winner took pup Jazz on the X Factor
SHE might not have won The X Factor... but Diana Watson is a winner thanks to the Evening Times. Diana’s face might ring a bell. She took part in the 2009 round of the reality television show, coming face-to-face with Simon Cowell and giving the mogul a good telling off for being cheeky.
The 67-year-old appeared with her dog Jazz as musical duet All That Jazz.
Sadly, the pooch took stage fright and failed to perform on the night, leaving Diana singing I Will Survive all on her own.
Fans of the show won’t need told how Simon was left less than impressed. But now Diana, from Rutherglen, has a reason to smile.
She is the winner of the Evening Times Lottery– and she couldn’t be any more delighted.
The grandmother-of-three said: “When I was on The X Factor I was so surprised at how much of me they showed on the programme. I had more time on the telly than the Prime Minister. “Winning this is great. “I’m just all excited, I can’t get over it.”
Diana now intends to share her £1000 prize with her three children, Scott, 33, Claire, 39, and Julie, 36, as well as her ex-husband.
The Church of Scotland support worker added: “As soon as I realised I had won I called Scott in Australia and told him, ‘There’s going to be some pounds coming your way’.
“I don’t know what they will spend their money on but I’m going to take my sisters out for dinner.”
Diana has three grandchildren, Sienna, who lives in Australia and is about to turn two, two-year-old Bradley and Francis, who is not quite one yet.
As well as a big family, she also has five cats and two dogs.
Diana added: “I’ll definitely be feeding them with a few wee treats too. It might sound generous that I’m giving all the money away but whatever you give away comes back.” See if you have a lucky number: Page 10
FUNDING cuts to colleges are causing “great big holes” in the approach to widening access to education, MSPs have heard.
Giving evidence to Holyrood’s Education and Skills Committee, Dame Ruth Silver, chairwoman of the Commission on Widening Access, said the colleges situation is a “disaster waiting to happen”.
She said failure to protect college budgets was behind the problem.
Former Labour leader Johann Lamont said to Dame Ruth: “We’ve seen the college sector cut. We’ve seen disproportionate cuts to part-time places so that young parents with caring responsibilities would not be able to do college courses.”
The chairwoman replied: “That’s what happens when you are not protected by the law and not protected by the Queen, you are the place where actually on the whole politicians turn to first to bring about change.
“It’s not a protected budget and in not having that you are making great big holes in the stepped approach to widening access.”
She added: “It’s a disaster waiting to happen, but that’s policy-led and funding-led.”
Figures released by the Scottish Funding Council earlier this week revealed the number of full-time college places funded by the Scottish Government has fallen by more than 1,800.
Ministers hit the target to provide at least 116,000 funded full-time equivalent (FTE) places in 2015-16, but total places dropped from 119,023 the previous year to 117,204.
A Royal Society of Edinburgh report published last month found part-time college students have dropped by 48% in the past eight years, a change that “primarily affected women and over 25-yearolds”, while full-time course places rose by 14% in the same period.
The Scottish Government’s draft budget for 2017/18 plans to increase net college resource to £551.3 million from £536.6 million in the previous year’s budget, but the Liberal Democrats claim college funding has been cut by £90 million in the past seven years.