He ran a record shop. She was a healthcare worker at her local hospital, looking after sick children. They sounded like a very pleasant couple, you know, nice average people struggling to make ends meet.
"We have lived within our means," she said, "and we've been comfortable, but we have been like ships in the night to earn the income we needed."
Then one day, they won the lottery. And I mean they really won the lottery: £148 million.
You have to stop and imagine what that's like: a tidal wave of wealth, suddenly rushing over you, unexpectedly sweeping away everything you know, demolishing your life in the blinking of an eye. Champagne corks burst, cameras flash, the ridiculous numbers are printed on an impossibly big cheque, there are smiles, teeth, suits and smart ties everwhere and it feels like time is somehow elapsing around you.
And perhaps you don't know how to feel. Deep down you feel sort of... guilty. There's no time for that niggling feeling though. The tsunami pours through your mind, opening all the doors, bursting through each impenetrable barrier to your happiness and success. There's so much you could do.
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There's a picture of this unfortunate couple in the news today. It's been just over a year since that sunny day in their garden, when the corks popped and the money flowed. It looks like the champagne has gone flat:
"A couple who won £148m on the lottery last year are to divorce, following the "irretrievable" breakdown of their marriage.
Adrian and Gillian Bayford, from Haverhill, Suffolk, bagged Britain's second biggest ever lottery prize with their Euromillions jackpot in August last year.
Jardine Michelson Public Relations issued a statement on Mrs Bayford's behalf confirming the split.
"Gillian Bayford confirms that her marriage to Adrian has broken down irretrievably and they have separated," it said.
"Gillian requests that the media respect her and her children's privacy and that of their wider family at this time."
- Sky News
I don't know these people but I feel really sorry for them. I bet as well, that both of them said cliche things like not letting the money change them, that it can't buy happiness and that they would spend more time with their families and each other. It would be out of place to speculate how such a thing could tumble from such good intentions, but it's OK to be sad for them. Perhaps, the tidal wave of wealth that devastated their home and ruined their lives did so over the course of many months, rather than in that first elated instant.
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It's sad when people break up, especially when children are left to suffer. I've seen this a few times this year: people whose weddings I went to, played at and for whom I was Best Man. Who could have known on those sunny afternoons with the circus of camera flashes, suits and white smiles, that devastation was only a few years down the road?
I get angry about this kind of thing. I think it undermines the idea of marriage for the rest of us, especially those of us who have wanted to be married for a long time. However, being angry at the participants at the moment their lives are falling apart is less than sensible. The best thing any of us can do is to teach our own children the best way to live, whether that means being honourable people, or simply providing them with a better perspective on how to handle money really well.
That way, if they do win the lottery, they might be much more disposed to find creative ways to thank us.
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