If you were lucky enough to win $10.90 million on the National Lottery, would you give 98% of it away?

I was delighted to read in the newspaper last week that there are confirmed reports of people who know when they have enough, proving that the green eyed monster doesn’t always lurk in every corner.

And I’m thinking of two kind souls in particular.

Believe it or not, a Canadian couple who recently won $10.9 million in their national lottery decided to give away a whopping $10.6 million to churches, fire departments, cemeteries and the Red Cross.

Instead of treating themselves to a lavish bit of pampering and indulgence, they looked at their situation calmly and clearly and said "Nope! We don’t need all that money - life is good already thank you".

A breathtaking act of generosity I think you will agree.

They didn’t suddenly decide to buy one of these or perhaps two of these.

They didn’t suddenly decide to visit restaurants run by wildly eccentric foul mouthed chefs where you could savour a tasting menu for the guts of £200. Where you don’t know how to pronounce the food, and you are not sure how to eat it or which of the multitude of cutlery items laid out before you. No thank you.

To sidetrack myself for a moment - that reminds me of a few years back at a client dinner where I dined at one of the more famous of these ‘I simply have to be seen there’ restaurants.

"Oh haven’t you been there?? Oh it was simply divine! You simply must go…We actually spoke to Gordon/Marco/Terence/Perceval/Fabien? Blah de blah. And his signature dish of prawn flambéed canard avocado fused with goats cheese on a bed of spinach for £75 was simply to die for. Did I mention it was £75? Oh but we don’t mind, it was worth it..."

Ridiculous nonsense.

Anyway after 9 courses of various manifestations of grotesque ego and an average of three waiters variously getting on my nerves as they dived to rid my table of a stray crumb whenever it might appear, I was still utterly starving. The taxi driver who collected me had a mighty chuckle on my behalf when I asked him to take a diversion via the drive through Burger King!

No - so this lucky Canadian couple said that they were plain ordinary folk who did not need more than they had. And they gave a whopping 98% of it away.

Now if you believe in karma, then this couple will have nothing but good luck for the rest of their days, and more power to them.

It got me to thinking of some friends of my family who recently recounted to me a description of their fascinating lives growing up in the countryside as recently as the late 1960s and early 1970s.

They lived four miles outside the village. The father of the house was a farming man who farmed a herd of cattle. They kept a couple of pigs, and also had a chicken coop. Any and all types of vegetable were grown, including cauliflower, carrots, cabbage, spuds, parsnips, lettuce.

The mother of the house, along with the daughters, baked bread, made butter, and were in charge of ‘harvesting’ the chickens, while the father of the house ‘harvested’ a pig once or twice a year.

To my amazement I was informed that only two foodstuffs were ever purchased into the household: tea and sugar - which is incredible.

According to workgateways.com, the average weekly grocery bill in the UK is £60 per week, or £3,120. This is roughly the equivalent of £7,800 of gross salary. However if all you have to buy is sugar and tea, then it would only amount to probably less than £100.

Robert Zimmerman would no doubt remind me at this juncture that 'the times they have a changed...', however it does make you think.

If the idea of self subsistence living tickles your fancy, you could always have a look and see how Tom and Barbara coped all of 35 years ago in one of the most enduringly funny British sitcoms: The Goodlife.

I’d like to think that if Tom and Barbara happened to also win £10.9 million in the 1975 equivalent of the national lottery, that they might also think about giving it away to the more needy and the more worthy - possibly less the price of one pig, a new rotivator and two pairs of wellies!

And who knows, it might start off with a radish here or a lettuce there...and then twelve months from now, you night just be heading into your local German discount store with a rather short shopping list of merely sugar and tea.