Ever since Dr Kildare I’ve longed to be part of what I’ve always imagined to be the romantic hospital ethos. With any luck my generous donation will make me as familiar and revered a figure in my local hospital as the lady with the lamp.I’ve never understood the thinking behind anonymous donations But then I was never one to hide my light under a bushel. The trouble with a place like that is that you would be surrounded by the mega rich, and in my limited experience of the species the mega rich are also invariably mega mean.Remember the famous payphone Paul Getty installed in his home near Guildford because he was fed up with his children’s friends making so many calls. In the part of London where we rent our modest and distinctly shabby eyrie on the fourth floor with no lift, a one-bedroomed ground-floor flat with use of garden could easily set you back a million.

No, I’m talking big bucks, nearer to Lord Black’s housekeeping money than Mr Carroll’s, so I’m not sure what I would do with his $27m home in Palm Beach, Florida. Keep writing them, he told her.Sometimes in mellow moments I imagine what I would do with an unexpected windfall Anything less than a million doesn’t count, by the way. You must have heard about the Scottish lottery winner whose wife asked him what they should do about all the begging letters. As a matter of fact, he seems to have been not only sensible but also generous, having bought £1m houses not just for himself but also for his aunt and uncle and his mum and dad. But as one who has never won anything in my life apart from £50 from the Premium Bonds I was given as a child by my godfather, I don’t give a toss how Mr Carroll chooses to spend his millions.

What on earth has winning the lottery to do with privilege, and does it automatically follow that because I have never won the lottery I am therefore under-privileged? There’s a much simpler reason: I’ve never bought a ticket.If you had to fill in a form, before you bought your lottery ticket, that in the event of winning you promised to spend your prize money responsibly, I could just about stomach Mr Bellingham’s pious pomposity. It was a privilege, and privilege entailed responsibility.
No wonder we’re all so disenchanted with politicians: they do talk a lot of rot. His Norfolk MP, Henry Bellingham, commented that Carroll had been grossly irresponsible because winning the lottery wasn’t a right. Former dustman Michael Carroll, according to his friends, has spent all but half a million pounds of the £9.2m he won in the lottery last year on houses, holidays, parties, cars, quad bikes, cocaine and a large share in Glasgow Rangers football club.