A Worcester Decorator on the lottery fever! What would you do?

You would have to be living on Bevere Island not to have heard the furore about our £33 million jackpot winner over the last couple of weeks. It's a roller-coaster tale of potential fraud claimants, secretive winners, and a rumour-mill on steroids. All in all, I would be surprised if it wasn't made into a British RomCom with Richard Curtis at the helm, (God help us!). 

With my local connections, it seems that an acquaintance of a friend has won the huge sum. He's a local lad who, I think, works in the trades of the outdoor variety and I wish him and his family well. But . . . it won't be easy. 

All the certainties that you had before (ironically, these include uncertainties too as they were probably a part of daily life), are changed overnight. And they are changed through luck as well, rather than enterprise or skill, which can leave a feeling of empty triumph.

When I've been up ladders or hanging from beams, paint brush in one hand and roller balanced between my feet to reach that awkward spot (don't tell the health and safely police!), me and the team have discussed what we do should we receive such a windfall.

The truth of it is that you can never tell. Of course you would sort out your family and friends. But what then? You would have to ensure that you would keep on the straight and narrow - and if I were younger I think that would be a very hard thing to do. But at my age now, weathered by the vicissitudes of life, shared equally in good and bad, triumph and failure, loss and gain, I think I would use it as a chance to build me as a better individual, and to build up a business. I would invest in people, taking on apprentices and helping those people to better themselves. I would give, somehow, to local charity, though I would have to see the results of that to ensure the money is making a proper difference.

£33 million is a threat and an opportunity. It will take careful balance to ensure that the straight and narrow is maintained. Good luck to them, whoever they are.