This is the only song I’ve written. I don’t really think of myself as a songwriter at all, but Gill was doing a songwriting module on the Folk degree at Newcastle University and was writing a suite of songs about the lottery. She was stuck trying to write something about how lottery winners think the money won’t change them but it does. As I was driving her into town for her lecture, I suggested that maybe what she should do was change the viewpoint and try and write something from the point of view of a friend of the big winner.

I dropped her off at the Armstrong Building and, as I pulled out of the university car park, this song fell on me. It arrived pretty much fully formed - I had a tune and all the verses by the time I got back to our house in Bensham, so I wrote it down fast as I could, tweaked a few bits and pieces, kicked out a verse that didn’t belong and recorded the tune into garageband with my laptop’s internal mic just so I didn’t forget it.

“I’ve written that song!” I said as I picked Gill up.

She nearly killed me.