Retired journalist David Edwards recalls stories from his reporting days.
This month, David looks back at the Littlewoods Pools.
In 1990 I worked for a short while in a Press Agency in Cardiff. The Agency did press releases for Littlewoods Pools and whenever there was a winner of the Football Pools or Spot the Ball competitions it usually meant a job for me and a photographer.
I remember travelling with a photographer to take a pic and do a story on a bloke who had won Spot the Ball.
To win the competition an entrant had to mark a cross in the exact position of a ball missing from a football photograph.
When I interviewed the bloke he said for years he had used a special stamp made up of crosses to try and find the exact centre of the ball.
He did a first-class job because he won £25,000.
And then there was the Pools winners.
Anyway back in 1990 the Agency was put on standby because there was a big bucks Pools winner in West Wales.
A right royal reception was held in a Cardiff hotel to welcome the winner and his family.
There was plenty of food and drink laid on, and I don’t mean banana sandwiches, while there were financial advisers sat there all eager to tell the winner where to put his money after burning the begging letters.
The Pools coupon was no longer a draw in 1994 when the National Lottery became the number one choice for people who wanted to be millionaires.
Mind you there is a strong connection with the Lottery and the Rhondda.
A Lottery draw took place on Saturday, November 18, 1994 when the jackpot was £5.9 million.
The programme was presented by Noel Edmonds and held at BBC Television Centre in London.
The programme also went to outside broadcast locations and one was the Rhondda Heritage Park which caused quite a betting fuss at the time.
Watched by some 25 million people it featured celebrity star turns and the inimitable predictions of Mystic Meg (remember her?).
The draw failed to make someone a millionaire with the jackpot shared by seven winners, with each one winning a shade under £840,000.
Talking about Mystic Meg I remember many years ago I interviewed a psychic and when I had finished she asked if I did the National Lottery.
When I told her that I did she said: “Write these six numbers down and you will be a winner.”
I was already spending the money.
I bought a lottery ticket and filled in the six numbers she gave me and guess what?
None of ’em came up!