Viv Nicholson: the 1961 pools winner who vowed to 'spend, spend, spend'

In 1961 Keith and Viv Nicholson, a miner and a 25-year-old factory worker from Castleford, won £152,000 on the Littlewoods football pools, about £3.5 million in today's money. Arriving in London to collect it, Viv told waiting reporters she would 'spend, spend, spend'. Bruce Forsyth handed over the cheque.

They spent on cars, jewellery, furs, a ranch-style house and champagne parties, and within about three years most of the money had gone. Keith died in a car crash in 1965. Viv was left with a large tax bill and was later declared bankrupt.

Alcohol and depression troubled her in the years that followed. She was deported from Malta after a fight with a policeman, was sacked from a singing job at a Manchester strip club, and married three more times. One later husband died in a car crash and another of an overdose.

Her life became the West End musical Spend Spend Spend in 1999. In 2011 she told the BBC she had no regrets. She died at Pinderfields Hospital on 11 April 2015, aged 79, having lived with dementia since 2009.

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Sources

• Guardian: 'Spend, spend, spend' pools winner Viv Nicholson dies (theguardian.com)
• BBC News: Pools winner Viv Nicholson dies (bbc.co.uk)