Viv Nicholson
| Viv Nicholson | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Vivian Asprey 3 April 1936 Castleford, Yorkshire, England, UK |
| Died | 11 April 2015 (aged 79) Wakefield, Yorkshire, England, UK |
| Spouse(s) | Matthew Johnson (1952–1954) Keith Nicholson (1954–1965) Brian Wright (1972–1976) Graham Ellison (1979) Gary Shaw (1985–1990) |
| Children | 4 |
Vivian Nicholson (3 April 1936 – 11 April 2015) was a British woman who became famous when she told the media she would "spend, spend, spend" after her husband Keith won £152,319 (equivalent to £3,167,827.29 adjusted for inflation) on the football pools in 1961. Nicholson became the subject of tabloid news stories for many years due to her and Keith's subsequent rapid spending of their fortune and her later chaotic life.
Nicholson was born Vivian Asprey on 3 April 1936 in Castleford near Leeds. Her father was a coal miner, but suffered from epilepsy, and so was often unable to work. Her mother was asthmatic. As the oldest child, she was expected to help with taking care of her younger brothers and sisters and scavenge for coal. Growing up in extreme poverty, she was not allowed to take up a scholarship she had won to art school. Having left school at age 14, she took work at the local liquorice factory making pontefract cakes.
She became pregnant at age 16 and married Matthew Johnson, but left him to marry her neighbour, Keith Nicholson, two years later. By 1961 she had four children.
Keith won the pools on 30 September 1961. Nicholson and her husband's constant and lavish spending sprees (involving purchases of expensive and lavish sports cars, fur coats, clothing, home appliances, jewellery, vacation trips around Great Britain and abroad, etc.) over the next few years quickly depleted their fortune. By her own admission, she found it hard to cope with the psychological effects of the money Keith had won. Having no concept at how to manage and save money, Viv Nicholson admitted to becoming so consumed by spending money that she related to it at one point like an addiction to narcotics. Due to her out of control spending, she came to feel distanced from the people she had lived among, who in turn could no longer relate to her, and developed an ever greater longing for a much more affluent lifestyle.
After her husband Keith died in a car accident on 30 October 1965, Viv Nicholson's fortune rapidly dwindled to nothing: banks and tax creditors deemed her bankrupt and declared that all the money, and everything she had acquired with it, belonged not to her but to Keith's estate.
In 1968, Nicholson won a three-year legal battle to gain £34,000 from her husband's estate, but rapidly lost it all through more out of control spending as well as taxes, legal fees, unpaid bills, and bad investments.
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