Would winning £184million on the Lottery make you happy?

Conventional wisdom is that most who hit the jackpot end up divorced, bankrupt or lonely. But HUNTER DAVIES, who’s written a book about them, says the reality is much more cheering

WHAT would you do if you suddenly won £18? You know, out of the blue? Me? Instead of buying the special offer £8 New Zealand Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, I would splash out and buy a bottle of top Chablis at £18. What fun, let’s go mad for once.

And if I won £184? There are some banana plants I saw on a mail-order offer which would make my garden look fab, though I had been thinking: come on, be sensible, £184 for some plants that might not last the summer? Don’t be daft.

And £18,400 – surely I could spend that wisely? Help the world, help my grandchildren? Good idea. I’d take them all to the Lake District for the half-term hols.

But what about £18million? If that suddenly appeared in my HSBC bank account, what would I do? Leave HSBC for a start.

I hate them and would be glad to get shot of them. I’d take out all the cash and keep it under the bed. Safer there than any dodgy investments or horrible banks.

But hold on. Just imagine for a moment that – incredibly, amazingly, unbelievably – you have just won £184million, the biggest Lottery win ever in the UK?

That’s what happened last week to a middle-aged couple in the Cotswolds. What would you do then?

What would I do? Keep it secret, for a start. How embarrassing. How awful. Imagine having everyone knowing for ever that you had won such a ridiculous, obscene sum.

And yet, more than the 30 years since our National Lottery began, three out of ten of the big winners have gone public. Much, of course, to the delight of Camelot, the Lottery organisers. And the art designer whose job is to create a giant mock-up of the winning cheque which gets displayed to the TV cameras at a press conference in a local – and usually rather downmarket – hotel.

Why do they agree to the publicity? That’s the bit I don’t get. Surely they are encouraging jealousy, begging letters and hate mail.

Is it because: a) They are dopey, with no imagination; b) Camelot has sweet-hearted them into it; c) They are show-offs; d) They want people to envy them, especially those they know never liked them; e) They want their family and friends to share in what they think will be fun and excitement; f) They always wanted to be on TV and in the papers; g) They think they will be celebs, and get to know Rebekah Vardy; h) They have been blabbing down the pub, so they knew it would get out eventually; i) They decide it’s best to get it over

with, in one go, one event; j) They fear it will be a burden, living with a secret, if they don’t go public?

That last reason is apparently what the £184 million winners, Joe and Jess Thwaite from the Cotswolds, said.

So they agreed to go before the cameras, give each other a big kiss and wave the phoney cheque in the air. It is fairly understandable. Such a phenomenal win was bound to get out once they started splashing the cash.

In fact, they sound pretty sensible, and not short of a bob or two anyway. They live in a yummy-looking £600,000 house near Gloucester. She manages a hair salon and he is an engineer. Good luck to them.

Now it is out, they have had their day under the TV lights. They will be hoping they won’t change, will remain the same people. Which is what all winners think. The same people – just with more money. And so able to tell the world to eff off.

Obviously, if you have personal problems, mental health issues, a rotten relationship, are on the booze or drugs, then the chances are the money will exaggerate your problems and enable you to indulge your vices.

But the vast majority are not like that – they are decent, law-abiding, only wanting the best for their children, their family, neighbours and society. Will they be happier? They all hope so but most other people think they won’t be, believing money does not make winners happy.

Look at the evidence, at all the stories of big winners over the past 30 years. You will see that many appear to have ended up bust, lonely, suicidal, their life in tatters.

It would seem to be the norm, alas, if you read all the horror stories.

Is it true? I did try to find out. When the National Lottery began on November 19, 1994, I bought a ticket. Not to win any money, wash your mouth out. Money is the last thing I need in life. I won the lottery when I married my wife in 1960. Really, my whole life went well from then on.

Even though she died six years ago and I am now on my own, I count my blessings all the time about how lucky I have been in life. I wanted the ticket for two reasons. As memorabilia, for my collection of social-history ephemera. And also because I had just had the most brilliant idea.

When I read, as we all did at the time, that Camelot were going to start our first modern lottery and give billions to good causes, to the arts, sports, culture, blah-blah, I thought to hell with the good causes. What about the winners? How will it affect their lives? Poor sods. Will they end up happier? They don’t know how becoming overnight millionaires will hit them.

I contacted Camelot about doing a book on Lottery winners. I wanted to meet them when they won – then again a year later, to see how their lives have changed.

After a bit of faffing, Camelot agreed to help. They would even allow me access to some of those who had chosen to remain anonymous. With their agreement, of course.

And I promised I would change

Why do they agree to the publicity, encouraging hate mail?

their names and locations to protect their privacy.

So for the next year I had access to 20 winners, able to observe and record the dramatic changes in their lives in my book Living On The Lottery.

Like most people, when fantasising about winning while standing in the queue to buy their tickets, they were telling themselves: ‘Oh, if I win, you won’t see me for dust. I will be on a tropical island and I will give most of the money away to help poor people, cure cancer, feed the starving, oh yes.’ In the event, a year later, not one had moved abroad. Mostly, they moved only about ten miles away, to a slightly bigger house but still roughly in the same area.

Only five per cent had given anything to charity, though they had enormously helped their own families. Were they happier having won all this money? This was somewhat harder to work out.

So I asked endless questions, and let the winners evaluate their own lives. And my conclusion? That about 90 per cent were indeed happier. If you think about it, much of modern stress is caused by not enough money – not enough food for the children, no proper accommodation, no work. It is pretty clear that money can help ease such problems.

But a myth has grown that winning a lot of money will not make you happy. This is generally accepted folklore, handed down through the generations. But really, it is a compensation myth, to comfort those who don’t win. Among my winners, there were some with chronic illnesses who were now able to pay for treatment or facilities.

One was suffering multiple sclerosis, but thanks to his win, he was able to equip his house with lifts and devices to make life more bearable.

When people read of the big winners who ended up divorcing, they go: ‘Tut-tut, see: money drove them apart.’

But we rarely know what their life was really like before their win. Those in unhappy or abusive relationships are often forced – by poverty or circumstance – to remain together.

One of the couples I followed over that year did split – but she then confessed she had been unfaithful. She had been living a lie in a sterile marriage. She was a teacher and having an affair with her married headmaster.

After the couple won, they split the money and amicably divorced. She married the headmaster and started a new life.

So did her husband. I kept in touch with him for some years and visited him in a castle in Scotland where he was happily living with his new wife. All thanks to his lottery win.

Of the 20 winners I followed, only one, thinking long and hard, considered themselves to be less happy a year after their win. This was a single man, living in digs, who was working as a kitchen-hand in a Durham college at the time of

90 per cent of winners were happier a year after their huge windfall

his win. He always regretted going public about his win. He felt embarrassed and disliked all the fuss.

Looking back, he thought the single happiest time in his life had been just before his win when, having been an unemployed painter for some years, he had suddenly got the kitchen job.

Various surveys have backed up what I found – that the vast majority of winners are happier.

It’s not the flash conspicuous expenditure on Ferraris that satisfies but the feeling of financial security, the ability to help friends and family, to fulfil daydreams.

Alas, pre-winning fantasies of helping humanity and giving to charity are rarely fulfilled.

In my survey of 20 winners, most had indeed helped their own family but only two had given anything altruistically to charity. And just modest amounts. But they promised themselves they would give more, one day.

So what would I do with £184 million? If my wife were still alive, she would tell me to leave nothing to our children. Instead, leave it all to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. ‘I know he will spend it wisely,’ she used to say. ‘On your bike,’ I would reply.

But thanks to her prompting, we had always given away money from our various books to charities, which I have continued, such as to Marie Curie and the Cumbria Community Fund.

All the advance from my present book, The Heath, has gone to a local charity, the Heath and Hampstead Society.

And what do I get out of giving away money?

A warm glow, of course…