This proved not to be so, however. Thanks to the help extended to me by the trust Chief Executive Margarette Worden and her helpers and the eagerness of the general public to support their Air Ambulance, the lottery was soon underway and the target figure of ticket sales achieved. To many people who had brought tickets the incentive of a £1,000 weekly top prize was not needed - all they wanted was to help keep Cornwall's life-saving helicopter service in the air. By Christmas 1988 over 30,000 tickets were being sold each week, a remarkable return, bearing in mind that distribution was limited mainly within the county itself.

A few years ago, a very difficult decision needed to be taken, and taken quickly, at that!. We had survived the advent of the Saturday National Lottery, but when they started the Wednesday night draw, our scratch-card sales started to decline rapidly. The decision was whether to close our lottery down completely, or to revitalise it with a fresh and revamped format, geared to taking our Air Ambulance helicopter forward into the 21st century in style.

Having scoured the country for inspiration, I settled upon the idea of a limited membership weekly draw, offering participating members the opportunity of over eighty cash and other prizes every week. With ten unique numbers in each and every draw, this gives every subscriber EIGHT HUNDRED chances of winning a prize for the modest outlay or just one pound.

As an added incentive and in the belief that "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em", all members are also offered a group entry with ninety-nine others into every National Lottery draw as long as their payments are up to date.

The new lottery, styled "Cornwall Air Care Lottery", was launched at the Air Ambulance's tenth birthday celebration, held at the Royal Cornwall Showground, Wadebridge on 30th March 1997. By mid-May we had sufficient members signed up to make the new scheme viable and the first draw took place amid great publicity on the 19th of that month.

If you would like more information about joining the lottery, you can contact bill at:

Bill Pearce, 15 Coombe Drive, Cargreen, SALTASH, Cornwall

Tel: 01752-844500