In Good Company: Rich Dreams
Enid Blackburn was dreaming of being wealthy long before the arrival of the national lottery with its multi-million-pound winners.
The family were discussing the recent Pools winner, ‘Poor chap,’ was my husband’s retort, ‘Whatever will he do with £800,000?’ I kept my mouth shut.
Our exchequer has not received our festive grand total yet, so he can afford to be naïve.
Although half of me retains an intrinsic working class attitude – that money which has not been earned cannot be enjoyed – the other half would certainly have a high old time with a few thousand before conscience set in.
I could pay off all our debts, keep the central heating on all night, and burn my husband’s paintbrushes. Refurnish from attic to cellar with priceless antiquities, and fit our dining room with a shag-pile carpet deep enough to conceal our dog, so my husband wouldn’t need to kick him out.
We could dutifully install the grandparents in a heated coastal bungalow, surrounded by arable acres, and buy my dad a lumber yard so he could knock up hen huts to his heart’s content. Philip Rickman’s book ‘A Selection of Bird Paintings and Sketches’ would sit on my bookshelf, not because I am a frustrated ornithologist, but I’d simply love to own a book that costs £450.
There is no end to the luxury in which we could wallow. Our students would be rigged out with a complete school uniform – in triplicate – no more blouses steaming on radiators, plus full sporting kit, something we never managed to attain.
Our 11-year-old would be educated privately. Believe me, this would take priority. We could set up a trust fund for all our offspring with . . . certain conditions of course. One would be that they never regard pa and me as being unlovable.
Oh boy, it would be extravagance all the way. The horizons are almost unimaginable, our cavernous freezer stocked to the brim at last, and a general dogsbody to take over my duties so my ‘I’m off,’ threat could eventually become reality. I could actually visit my sister in Australia, and can you visualise the supreme ecstasy of looking at price tickets – after you got the article home?
I would make sure my beloved had his heart’s desires, a market garden and a country pub, before I set off for Paris, New York or India. Robert Robinson would not be the only one to slide off an elephant into a maharajah’s palace, if I were a rich man.
Should all this richness give me indigestion, spending on others may ease the strain. I could provide an elderly friend with a private nurse and chauffeured Rolls. The nurse would perform the injections, which are a daily dread for her own gnarled arthritic fingers. The Rolls would take her to all the places she wants to go but hasn’t the strength.
Perhaps I had better not dwell on the aged or handicapped, because £800,000 could soon be frittered away on putting new heart into them. Such frivolities would soon wipe out a fortune. I did once win £100, three-quarters of which I used to re-cover our suite. The rest went on a family dine-out. Feeling like Paul Getty I swaggered to the bar with my order, ‘a champagne cocktail.’ If I had demanded a glass of milk the barman couldn’t have looked more stunned. I returned red-faced with my usual lager and lime. How was I to know barmen were not enthusiastic about opening bottles of champagne for one cocktail? This never happened in the books I read.
I could pay off all our debts, keep the central heating on all night, and burn my husband’s paintbrushes. Refurnish from attic to cellar with priceless antiquities, and fit our dining room with a shag-pile carpet deep enough to conceal our dog, so my husband wouldn’t need to kick him out.
Ah well, back to reality. Cornwall’s not so bad early season – is it?
