Most people, when scooping a massive win on the pools or national lottery, might follow the advice of a grey-suited financial adviser and buy a good-sized house, a reasonably flash car, take a couple of nice holidays and then live off the income from what’s left. But the story of Viv Nicholson — who died on Saturday aged 79 — is an exuberant lesson in what happens when you ignore all the advice and just blow the lot. When Viv, a cake-factory worker from Castleford in Yorkshire, and her coal miner husband Keith won £152,319, 18 shillings and 8d on the Littlewoods Pools in 1961 — the equivalent of around £3 million today — she announced that her life from now on would emphatically be neither sensible nor boring. Scroll down for video . In the money: Viv and husbandKeith receiving their chequefrom Bruce Forsyth in 1961 . Throwing her arms wide open towards the assembled Press in the plush surroundings of the Grosvenor House Hotel in London, the petite 25-year-old blonde charmed the world with an unapologetic joie de vivre, declaring that the money would indeed change her life. ‘Just imagine,’ grinned Nicholson. ‘I am going to buy masses of dresses and suits and coats. Brigitte Bardot won’t stand an earthly once I get cracking. There’ll be new clothes, too, and presents — dozens of them — for our three children.’ And then — in a phrase that decades later became the title of a hit musical starring Barbara Dickson — she famously announced that she was going to ‘spend, spend, spend’. Unbeknown to the media, Viv was so poor that she couldn’t even afford a pair of tights for the press conference, and had to borrow her sister’s. She was earning just £7 a week at the factory, and her husband the same amount in night shifts. When the couple got the train to London to collect their cheque, she was astonished to see so many people at King’s Cross rushing towards her compartment. ‘I thought: “Oh, I didn’t realise there were so many people who wanted to catch a train,”’ she said later. ‘That is how naive I was. They were reporters.’ The story of Viv Nicholson — who died on Saturday aged 79 — is an exuberant lesson in what happens when you ignore all the advice and just blow the lot . After the cheque presentation ceremony at the Grosvenor House, she collapsed into the arms of the man who had handed the couple their massive winnings — Bruce Forsyth. The following morning her ecstatic face and the headline ‘Spend, Spend, Spend’ were plastered over nearly every newspaper in the land. Soon after breakfast, Viv was good to her word — she went out and started on her mission. For her new wardrobe, there was only one place to go — across Hyde Park to Harrods. And of course, in the style of every pools and lottery winner, Viv bought the car of her dreams. In her case, the motor was as ostentatious as her bumptious personality — a pink Cadillac. And she dyed her hair to match. The couple quickly moved out of their semi-detached council house on Kershaw Avenue, and into an £11,000 upmarket sprawling ranch-style bungalow complete with swimming pool in the well-to-do Leeds suburb of Garforth. ‘The neighbours hated us and our noise,’ she admitted. ‘Mind you, we did party, party, party . . .’ The children were sent to private schools — the one sensible thing she did was to set up a trust to pay for their education — and Keith even bought a racehorse. It was a display of feckless extravagance at odds with an early Sixties Britain yet to escape the shadow of Fifties austerity. For a short while, all seemed well, and the family travelled through the U.S. and Europe, when such globetrotting seemed impossibly exotic. But without anyone to guide them — the counselling on offer to today’s lottery winners was nowhere to be seen — the young couple were overwhelmed by the wealth those eight score-draws had brought them. Their new home, which they called Ponderosa after the ranch in TV western Bonanza, was the scene of riotous parties and its built-in cocktail bar was an unheard of luxury for the mid-Sixties. The couple’s propensity for bubbly was such that Viv was known to wash in it. When they weren’t partying at home, they were knocking it back at the local pub, the Miners Arms. Viv also claimed they had to buy a new luxury car every six months, as she pranged them so often. ‘I used them to learn to drive. I was awful at reversing and would always reverse into somebody’s plant pot or door.’ Their spending was frittered away not just on motors, but on clothes and a lifestyle to match. Their new-found fame bought access to the celebrities of their day, and the couple rubbed shoulders with the likes of Leonard Rossiter, Joan Collins and even Mae West. And they had to look the part. Viv Nicholson pictured outside the West-End production of 'Spend Spend Spend' in 2000 . For some, Viv’s behaviour encapsulated the nascent consumer culture that was heralded by Harold Macmillan’s famous words from a few years before that the British people had ‘never had it so good’. Although Viv was undeniably susceptible to such commercial pressures, there were other problems. ‘When we first won the money all we did was drink,’ she admitted. ‘I used to fall over, I was falling from one table of drinks to the next for the first month or two.’ As well as struggling to cope with their excessive penchant for alcohol, both Keith and Viv struggled to adjust to a strange new social life. Old friends and neighbours were jealous of their wealth and resentful of their hedonistic lifestyle. It didn’t help that Viv had a temper, and she and Keith often fought. ‘Keith hated it,’ she later confessed. ‘I used to throw things at him when I lost my rag.’ But such incidents would soon seem trivial. In January 1965, Keith was killed after losing control of his powder-blue Jaguar on the A1, and skidding down an embankment. Keith’s uncle, Frank, also died. That crash not only robbed Viv of a husband, but it also took away what remained of their wealth. Barbara Dickson (left), star of the musical Spend Spend Spend and Viv Nicholson, upon whose life story the musical was based . By then, the couple had blown half of their winnings, and in the wake of his death, Harold Wilson’s Labour Government with its punitive tax system helped itself in death duties to the remaining half. ‘Even his watch,’ Viv would bitterly recall. Within little more than four years, Viv had gone from rags to riches to rags again. What she did have left were her looks and a certain celebrity, so she soon found herself singing Big Spender — what else? — in a strip club in Manchester. However, the managers wanted more from Viv than just her voice, and insisted she should strip at the end of the song. Viv agreed, but only if she could keep her underwear on. Her request was refused, but Viv was defiant. ‘I kept my knickers and bra on,’ she recalled. ‘I was frogmarched into the back and told: “You’ll do it properly tomorrow or you’re sacked.”’ Viv still refused to strip, and the following night was indeed sacked. ‘I earned £50, which didn’t even cover the petrol there and back,’ she said, ‘I couldn’t do it; I wasn’t a stripper.’ Viv also spent time with lawyers to claw back some of the fortune taken by the taxman. She recovered a few thousand, quickly spent in the way that Viv knew best — on booze and the high life. To find some security, Viv remarried, and did so in her unique style three times in quick succession. She moved to Malta to start a new life, but a punch-up with a policeman put paid to that, and she was deported. Without a bean and back in Castleford, Viv tried to commit suicide, and was admitted to a mental institution. But soon she picked herself up, as she always had. In 1977, she published her autobiography called — naturally — Spend, Spend, Spend. This was turned into a BBC play, in which Viv was memorably portrayed by actress Susan Littler. In 2011, she suffered a stroke, after which she was afflicted by dementia. But, despite it all, Viv never rued a single day . In 1984, Morrissey, lead singer of The Smiths, selected a vintage photo of Viv to grace the sleeve of the band’s latest single, Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now. And in 1999, that West End musical took off, earning Viv a hefty £100,000 in royalties. One might have thought that by then Viv would have learned her lesson. But no, she spent it, mostly on drink, which nearly killed her. After a spell in hospital, she recovered, and found stability in becoming a Jehovah’s Witness and working in a perfume shop in Wakefield. In 2011, she suffered a stroke, after which she was afflicted by dementia. But, despite it all, Viv never rued a single day. ‘Would I do it all again — you bet I flaming would,’ she said. ‘I bought designer clothes, I travelled, I gave my kids a good education and I had a ball. I’ve packed more into my life than 20 people. I have no regrets.’ Of course, it is easy for us to judge how Viv spent her life. For while her story is a parable on the perils of avarice, and how money really doesn’t buy happiness, it is also a lesson in the corrupting influence of celebrity. Famous and feted as she was, her money brought more entertainment for the rest of us than it did for her. Even so, isn’t there a part of us all that wants to do as she did — to throw off the shackles of responsibility and convention, and spend, spend, spend?
Viv won £152,319, 18 shillings and 8d on the Littlewoods Pools in 1961 .
Afterwards announced her life would no longer be sensible or boring .
Said she would 'spend, spend spend' in phrase that prase that became the title of a hit musical .