Original photo caption from September 1961: Miner Keith Howard Nicholson, 23, and his 25yr old wife Vivian were presented with a cheque for 152,319 8s, in London, for their Treble Chance Littlewoods soccer pool win. The couple who have 3 children live at Castleford, Yorkshire. * Mr Nicholson plans to spend his win following his artistic ambitions.
In 1961, a liquorice factory worker from Castleford in Yorkshire called Viv Nicholson suddenly became famous when, along with second husband Keith, she won £152,319 and eight shillings (approximately £3 million these days) when they successfully predicted eight score draws on the Littlewood Pools. When the couple realised they had won they hardly had enough money to buy a couple of drinks to celebrate: “We had just enough for a pint for Keith and a half for me,” Viv once told the Yorkshire Post.
However, if there was a box in those days that said ‘no publicity’ they definitely didn’t tick it and when they came to London to collect their giant cheque from Bruce Forsyth Viv, wearing a pair of her sister’s tights because she couldn’t afford her own, gleefully announced to the press at King’s Cross station that she was going to “spend, spend, spend!”. In an interview in the Observer she said:
The week before we won, we desperately needed some money. My husband Keith was working on a night shift, for £7 a week, and I was earning £7 a week in a cake factory. After paying the bills, it was hard to make ends meet. We weren’t even eating very well. At least, I wasn’t eating very well, because I had to keep my husband and my three children going, so one of us had to suffer.
Original caption: Vivian Nicholson and her husband Keith at their home in Airedale, Castleford, Yorkshire, looking at his winning coupon after winning £152, 319 8s on the Littlewood Pools.
Original caption: The first big winner on the football pools, Viv Nicholson, returns to the street where she lived before striking it rich, her 38 shilling a week council house behind her.
In 1965 her husband Keith tragically died at the wheel of his blue Jaguar and when the Inland Revenue soon came calling Viv was declared bankrupt. The money that was left and everything acquired with it belonged it was declared not to her but to her late husband’s estate.
Cover of the Smiths’ Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now single.
Jonathan Green once wrote in the Guardian:
The point about Nicholson, as she happily admits, is that she wanted to be American. And not just American, but an American gangster’s moll. It was a 50s America in the main – those were the images we had: Elvis, Frank, Marilyn – but the very fact of liking the States rendered her an avatar of what was coming. Like Richard Hamilton’s celebrated taxonomy of Pop Art, the new world would be popular, transient, expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, big business. Such adjectives were the future and such adjectives were, albeit briefly, Viv.
PA NEWS PHOTO 19/8/75 VIVIAN NICHOLSON WITH HER FIFTH HUSBAND GARY SHAW AFTER THEIR WEDDING AT PONTERFRACT REGISTER OFFICE IN YORKS
Viv Nicholson has now suffered three strokes, and returned to her hometown of Castleford, Yorkshire, where she now lives in a care home suffering from dementia.
Would you like to support Flashbak?
Please consider making a donation to our site. We don't want to rely on ads to bring you the best of visual culture. You can also support us by signing up to our Mailing List. And you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. For great art and culture delivered to your door, visit our shop.
