Ian McMillan: I'll spend, spend, spend my time dreaming

MY mother used to tell the tale of an auntie, in the days when family friends were called auntie, running down the allotment to her astonished husband, who was stoically weeding, shouting: "We've won the pools! Chuck your pit watch away!"

The glee became contagious: the man stood up and performed a dance that flickered from tentative jive to a clumsy Barnsley Flamenco and back again and other allotmenteers applauded and raised a ragged cheer.

I often wonder if, as the flat caps were flung in the air like clay pigeons at a shoot, the auntie realised her joke had gone a little bit too far. She ploughed on regardless. She knew that the dividend that week was forecast as "very low". She knew that they may be in line for something like 16. She didn't let on: she let the man dance. Eventually the truth would dawn and the flat cap would have to be retrieved from a hedge but until that moment she let him dream of spending, spending, spending.

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It's this dream that keeps lots of us buying lottery tickets every week. I realise that the odds of me winning are roughly the same as me being crowned Rear of the Year but every Saturday morning I buy three pounds' worth at the paper shop, pretending that I'm helping the good causes but really dreaming of untold, indeed stickily obscene, wealth.

I don't have a system; some people choose birthdays or house numbers or they have the same six numbers every week. I just choose six numbers randomly, without thinking, which often means that I end up with three lines consisting of similar numbers, because of the way my hand falls across the paper. I then tuck the ticket in my top pocket in the assurance that I've already won and I just have to wait until the early evening to have the fact confirmed.

I've won a few times, of course, like most people. The odd tenner, here and there. I've had four numbers twice, I think, in all the years I've been doing it. I once won 68, a deliciously random number that matched the randomness of my selection; as I remember, we shared it with the kids and I went out and bought a nice hardbacked book because I'm the Viv Nicholson of Darfield.

My dad had a lot of Premium Bonds and I remember he once won 25. In those days, the top prize was 25,000 and I asked my mother if she'd rather win that amount. "Oh no,"she said. "Twenty-five pounds is enough for me. I wouldn't know what to do with any more that that."

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It seems to me that, for a certain kind of people who'd been through the war and lived through austerity, that really was all they wanted, that the idea of wealth was somehow alien to them, especially wealth that they hadn't had to graft to earn. Times

have changed.

When I've got my ticket in my pocket and I'm walking home, I allow myself very specific fantasies about winning very specific amounts. Say I won 3,134,678.00. I'd give away the 134,678 straight away, to charity, leaving me with a nice round number to play with.

I'd give the kids and my Grandson Thomas half a million each, leaving me and my wife with a million.

I'd invest the million sensibly, and

live off the proceeds. I realise

that's just a version of my mother wanting just 25; maybe in the end I'm not a very good spender,

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although I might allow myself some lovely hardback books and a few

new bookshelves.

Sometimes I speculate on smaller but still specific amounts: 31,213.00. Give some away, give the kids and Thomas five thousand each, invest the rest. Well, maybe a couple of hardback books. I can visualise a lot of you shaking your heads; what about the big house, the flashy car, the jet ski, the bejewelled golden beret? Maybe I've got that auntie's trip down the allotment in my head; maybe I imagine that even if I thought I'd won, it would all be a joke and I'd soon have to retrieve the aforementioned bejewelled beret from next door's garden.

I still have my Saturday evening ritual, though, just before Casualty comes on. Get the ticket. Get the pen and the bit of paper to write down the numbers as they come up. Sit in front of the screen, perhaps a little too close. Dream of the specific amounts: 1,875,909.00 or 2,721.00. Dream of saying, with my voice cracking a little: "I've got something to tell you..."

Watch as the numbers come up; maybe get an early one to keep the excitement going. Maybe get a couple of what my mother-in-law calls "one-offs" as though a six is any good when the ball is a seven. It's a shame there's nothing for a one-off, we say. Often I get no numbers at all and I screw the ticket into a ball and chuck it in the bin. Oh well; time for Casualty. Until next week's dream.

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