Sharon Feinstein

I spent a couple of years interviewing lottery winners up and down the country, some of whom had never had a bank account before they were handed a cheque for £5 or £10 million. It was pretty fascinating, a real departure from interviewing celebs. Suddenly they became the celebrities, everyone wanted to read about how it felt to be a winner, would it bring happiness, what would they do with the money, how had they changed. I was welcomed into winners’ new homes, many furnished in the most hideous fashion, screaming with gold and glitz. A lot of them were very anxious, even a year later, they were plagued by moral issues like how much should I give cousin Tommy or aunty Fran, what do I put in trust for my kids, what if someone tries to kidnap them ? Some wanted to keep their win a secret, fearing a wave of envy and resentment, which meant they couldn’t have that lovely shiny red Ferrari parked outside their house, or the three-month round the world trip, and keep it away from the neighbours.One couple I interviewed sold up and travelled constantly, they’d already been round the world twice, but were starting to wonder what they could do next. Of course, sometimes I wished it was me, gazing at these people in amazement as though they were speckled with stardust, that simply hadn’t settled on me. I used to chug back to London on the train with my tape recorder and notes, knowing there were hours of work ahead writing up another story, in some ways glad to leave their predicament behind and get back to my life. Suddenly becoming very rich because of six plastic balls rolling about and landing on random numbers kind of makes a mockery of a lifetime of hard work and slow achievement. It’s all too sudden, arbitrary and shocking. But today, you know what, I went for a walk in the sunshine musing over my month in Thailand being over, and being back at my desk, a slave to stories. I stopped at the newsagent for some sweets and out of the blue I bought a couple of lottery tickets. There’s always a chance, isn’t there, that some of that stardust could land on me.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 18th, 2009 at 10:34 pm and is filed under SharonSpeak. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.