TODAY Tunners is feeling nostalgic.

There are two reasons. Firstly, it is a couple of years since I last allowed my fingers to dance daintily over the keyboard in ‘column mode’.

In the intervening period, this slot has been ably filled by my entertaining colleague Anna Smith.

However, for one week only I have been allowed to dabble in the columnic art as a special treat. And for my subject, I have chosen an event from a time long past - 1961.

And the reason for my interest in time travel? Well, it was sparked when I read about the sad death of Viv Nicholson, the famous pools winner from Castleford, a town close to where I grew up.

I was only 10, but can remember perfectly the news report of the record win and Viv's subsequent declaration of intended profligacy as she arrived in London with husband Keith to collect the jackpot cheque for £152,000.

The words ‘spend, spend, spend’ reverberated around the world. And that’s precisely what she did. It was a fantastic amount back then – and no mean sum today – but under Viv’s custodianship most of the jackpot was gone in just a few short years.

But I have a confession to make – several thousand pounds of it came my way. And this is how it happened. Although Viv was a notorious spendthrift, her husband was a tad more careful and before he died in a car crash, he managed to put some of the pools win into trust for their children. Some years later, when I was helping to run my family’s building company, we sold off several building plots – and one of those was bought by Viv’s son, paid for out of the trust fund.

Ironically, the entire pools win of 1961would be hard pressed to buy a decent building plot these days.

And while we’re looking back more than half a century, it is interesting to learn from today’s news that our current level of inflation, which at zero is not inflating at all, was last at this level in 1960.

Perhaps now is really a good time to spend, spend, spend.