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Anorak News | Tabloids Create EuroMillions Winner Les Scadding As Rags To Riches Story

Tabloids Create EuroMillions Winner Les Scadding As Rags To Riches Story

by | 11th, November 2009

8016148LEE Scadding and his wife Samantha are £45million better off today, having won the EuroMillions jackpot.

But what is their story? The Daily Express tells readers on its front page:

“£45M CHANGE OF LUCK FOR JOBLESS DRIVE WHO HAS A £68 OVERDRAFT.”

As the Star says, Les Scadding is a “jobless trucker”. He might well still be a jobless trucker, but he is a rich jobless trucker, which is better.

On the Mirror’s front page, jobless trucker Les becomes “unemployed Les”. He was “so astounded by the win he forgot to tell his two children.”

As Les tells us in the Sun:

“My daughter lives in Abu Dhabi and every time we speak she says, ‘have you won the yet Dad?’ When I told her I had, the whoop at the end was incredible.”

Such are the facts. But the key thing about Les Scadding is that he was unemployed and in debt to the shrieking tune of £68.

It’s a rags to riches story, right?

“Les went back to the same Tesco next day because he and Sam were ‘staving’ with no food in the house.”

The vision of poverty is but a fried squirrel away from being complete. Only, buried in the article are a couple of facts about unemployed, in-debt Les Scadding that alter the image:

Wife “Sam was born in a well-off family of accountants.” And “Sam “runs her own marketing firm”.

Although Les was unemployed, his wife wasn’t, and, by the sounds of it, she is not impoverished.

Still, we can agree that £45million is a lot of money. And no two nicer people in the world could have won it. (Cheques made out to Old Mr Anorak Benevolent Fund For Wayward Ping-Pong Players, Phuket.)



Posted: 11th, November 2009 | In: Reviews Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink