I tell them about being homeless for the last ten months: wearing worn-out clothes and shoes stuffed with cardboard to cover a hole. They love the quote I give them about wearing a new brand of deodorant called ‘Smellalot’ and me saying, “Last time I looked it wasn’t a brand you’ll find in Hugo Boss or behind the men’s counter at John Lewis or Boots.” This goes down really well.
The main thing they want is the rags-to-riches story; photos of where I used to sit ‘begging for pennies’, as they put it. They take photos of me doing it and then further photos with me holding bundles of cash.
Serious journalism this is not. They don’t check their facts and even get my name slightly wrong. Instead of James Sheldon, they say my name is Anthony Sheldon, which it is, but Anthony is my middle name. Don’t let the facts get in the way. Good news stories sell newspapers. That’s all they want.
I think these people live in a different world to normal people. For them, everything needs to be blown out of all proportion. They are only happy when you make it bigger and brighter. For example, you don’t get the giant cheque you see in the photos. That’s just for the big PR publicity campaign in front of the cameras for the benefit of the newspapers and TV. The money is actually transferred directly into your bank account. My bank account had been closed when the house was repossessed. So one of the team from the Lotto Company comes with me to Lloyds Bank who seem very happy to open a new account for me when they hear how much I’ve won.
It’s been two weeks. By now, the initial excitement of my win has died down and is no longer the main topic of conversation in the town or making front-page news.
With the removal of my scraggy beard, my new clothes, an expensive new hairstyle, a good leisurely shower and the prescription glasses I need but couldn’t afford, my appearance is totally different. I can walk down the street and no one recognises me or hassles me.
I no longer think all of this is a dream from which I am about to wake up. I’m rich beyond my wildest dreams but I have no one to share it with.
The Lotto people gave me a letter from their CEO congratulating me on becoming their biggest ever prize winner as I held the only winning ticket for their prize draw of £168,548,030. I carry the letter with me, and unfold and read it about six times a day. I still have to pinch myself.
Nobody needs this much money. My thinking is, if I give away £150 million, keep eighteen million and spend eight million on… well, anything I need, that will still leave ten million. If I live for the next forty years, that’s £5,000 a week. How would you spend more than that?
And £150 million could help a lot of people.
But how?
That’s the part of the plan I’m still working on.
Chapter Thirteen
JAMES
I decide to book into a Premier Inn hotel for a week, rather than the Albion, as no one here knows me and I can be left to think about what the future holds without well-intentioned people offering all sorts of advice.
So, I’m sitting in the hotel restaurant where I’ve just ordered a hamburger with chips and a drink of lemonade. I’ve got a notebook from an earlier visit to Rymans and I’m determined to come up with ideas to give away £150 million. My stomach is not used to eating a large meal so I decide not to order a dessert. The waitress brings over the bill for me to sign. As I’m a guest at the hotel, it will go onto my account. I ask her what made her decide on a career in hotels. She tells me it’s a stopgap before she goes to university.
“I’m planning to study Business Management and Human Resources at Nottingham Trent Uni,” she tells me.
As she walks away to serve another guest my thoughts turn to my life before becoming homeless. I’ve witnessed the unfairness of life. My dad was one in a million. When he was on early shift he’d meet me from school and take me to the park. He’d play with me and my mates on the swings and buy us all an ice cream and set up goal posts for football. He’d be referee and was always fair.
Then, one day when I expected to see him outside school he wasn’t there. I walked home on my own and he told me he’d been made redundant. I wasn’t sure what that was. I was only ten. It seemed a large American company had recently taken over the factory where he worked with the promise of keeping it open, but then they closed it down.
We lived in a nice house with a lovely garden. Our next-door neighbours were a policeman and his family. The son, Oliver, and I were friends. He would tell me about the things his dad did in his job. I guess that’s where my interest began.
Back then, I would use my pocket money to buy books on real life crime detection procedures, which today, borne out of an awareness from TV programmes, you would call CSI and forensics. It was then I learned about my local library. All the books I couldn’t afford to buy, I could borrow from the library. It was a revelation. I guess it all spurred me on to work hard at school and I eventually won a place at university.
Then one day, a removal lorry arrived and we moved
