Let’s ALL toast lotto couple’s £58m win
IENTERED the lottery for the first time this year. If you’re thinking that this is because I had some sort of stuck-up, snooty aversion to it, you’d be absolutely right. I was a pretentious teenager when the lottery was introduced, and loftily declared I’d never enter something that would serve up riches on a plate. No siree. I wanted to earn them.
Well, I’m not a teenager anymore (by a depressingly long shot), and the riches I have so far earned are mostly fictional. Serve up that plate please, and a knife and fork while you’re at it.
All of which means I cannot be anything other than thrilled for Fred and Lesley Higgins from Laurencekirk, Kincardineshire, who this week scooped an eye-watering £58million on the EuroMillions.
Not that it wasn’t a close-run thing, thanks to an over-enthusiastic Scotmid employee who tore up the ticket before realising they had won.
But really, I don’t begrudge them a penny of it. While there have been many rumblings and mutterings (mostly from people who have never won more than a tenner) that £58million is ‘too much’, I’m not convinced.
The whole point of the lottery is it’s supposed to be unattainable. Ridiculous. One in a million. Actually when it comes to the EuroMillions, one in 139,838,160. Like I said. Ridiculous.
The lottery is a big pile of unicorns and rainbows and angel wings, and that is what keeps us going back each week. When a nice retired couple who worked hard their whole lives comes into the hurricane of all windfalls the rest of us pause, just for a moment, and think well, it could be us, too.
Of course with great lottery winnings, comes great responsibility. It may all be sunshine, roses and bottles of Bollinger right now, but the Higgins have some major challenges ahead. First there will be the obscure family members, old friends and couples they met on holiday 25 years ago who will come squirming out of the woodwork, looking for handouts. Generosity is one thing, and I’m sure the’ll want to make sure their nearest and dearest are looked after, but there’s a difference between kindness and being taken for a ride.
Take the cautionary tale of Dave and Angela Dawes, who won £101million (how quickly £58million starts to sound paltry) on the EuroMillions in October 2011. Last year, they were taken to court by son Michael, an Afghanistan veteran, who accused them of being ‘ungenerous of spirit’ when he got into financial difficulties.
THE judge disagreed, ruling Michael’s parents did not need to keep bailing him out, given he had burnt through more than £1.6million in two years. His stepmother archly remarked that he should stop eating at the Ritz and start dining at McDonald’s instead.
Money may make the world go round, but it can also tear families apart. More money, more problems, as the old saying goes. I hope the Higginses have got themselves a decent financial adviser, and some solid family bonds.
Gillian and Adrian Bayford, meanwhile, who won £148million in 2012 (how quickly £101million starts to sound paltry) really did pay a high price for their winnings. Just 15 months later their marriage collapsed, with both citing the stress of the money as the primary reason.
The Higginses might find they have very different ideas about how to spend their money. They might also find it harder to make sensible decisions now the world is watching.
Indeed, I wonder why they went public at all. Perhaps they thought a shiny new Lamborghini turning up in the driveway might give the game away.
There is no doubt the lottery has changed Britain in the last 24 years. From the Olympic Games to the Angel of the North, it has funded projects that would have been untenable without it, and much of the money raised goes to charity. So should we be sour that occasionally, some of it goes into the pockets of a couple like the Higginses? Absolutely not. I hope they enjoy every penny.