GOOD CAUSES

You’re not supposed to say this kind of thing and yet of course many of us think it. The trouble with the National Lottery is the random nature of its largesse. To put it crudely, the jackpot so often goes to people on whom it is simply wasted. Now you and I, gentle reader, we know exactly what we’d do with £35.5 million. We would use it wisely and well. But the Scottish postal worker, at whom the fickle finger of fate pointed last Friday, had evidently never given the matter a moment’s thought.

That she still hasn’t given it any thought is clear from her public statements and demeanour since. The first thing she should have done – as you and I are sophisticated enough to know – was to say very firmly to Camelot “no publicity”. Camelot are not permitted to release the names of winners if those winners do not wish it and, were they to do so, they would find themselves with publicity a good deal more unwelcome than the innocent Scottish postal worker is giving them just now.

Instead, the life of this Euromillions winner will be made a misery. Now that she is identified, she will be inundated with pleas for financial support, some of them really quite plausible in their heart-wrenching detail: “my daughter, who has won a place at university, needs an urgent operation to save her sight; it can only be performed in the United States and we simply do not have the funds …”, “my little boy will never walk again unless …”, “my business and the livelihoods of the 250 people I employ can only be saved by a modest input of capital …”, “pay me now or your kid gets it …”

It ought too to have crossed her mind that her relationship with her family, friends and work colleagues will never be the same. Today, they claim with ever so slightly set faces that they are delighted for her. Tomorrow, when the gas bill arrives, they will reflect how it wouldn’t be any problem for her to settle. She will of course move away and she will find herself in a neighbourhood where she has no friends and a society where she has no place. Already she is cast adrift from her moorings, separated from all that is familiar by the extraordinary thing that has happened to her.

And what do you do with £35.5 million? She went out and had a manicure, the first of her life, and she told the press about it in terms suggesting that it never occurred to her that any of the reporters, even the female ones, had the remotest notion of what a manicure was like. And she bought a new dress, not a very expensive one if that was it on the news bulletins. She really has no idea how wealthy she is. The press kindly put it in perspective for her. She’s better off than Wayne Rooney. She’s better off than Prince William or Prince Harry. They didn’t add that she’s not remotely as wealthy as Tiger Woods or Madonna or JK Rowling or the Duke of Westminster but she probably hasn’t considered moving in their circles. What would she have to say to them if she did? “Oh, sorry, I think my son’s read one of your books”? So what in god’s name is she going to do with her wealth? Take up polo? Have a box for the season at Covent Garden?

Divorced as she is, she won’t want for male suitors for long, that’s for sure. Indeed, there will be attention from all sorts of quarters and, before many weeks have gone by, very little of it will be welcome. “You’re not interested in me” she will find herself saying. “You’re only interested in my money”. Just as well Anna Nicole Smith is no longer with us.

In short, this win may be the worst thing that ever happened to her unless she can become canny enough to handle it, which means considerably more canny than she has been so far. It has already priced her out of her natural market and cast her into a world of wealth that she doesn’t know or understand. Many kids, newly enriched by fame in sport or music or acting, go badly off the rails but at least all of them have access to professional advisors, support systems and contemporaries in a similar situation. And they clearly wanted wealth and fame or they wouldn’t have set off into those worlds. This poor cow just did the lottery, much like the rest of us, not really considering what sort of an impact unimagined riches would have on her life. She couldn’t even have kept quiet and then pretended that she made a windfall on investments (without disclosing to anyone the extent of her new income) because the bull market is over for the time being.

The best thing for her, candidly, would be for her to give the great majority of the money to a charity. Those of her family and friends (old and new) feeling some entitlement would be hard put to argue with such a gesture. Now, it so happens that I have a charity that I can strongly commend to her …