Nancy won £18,500

Saturday, 26 hours, 25 minutes since the last game ended, its a long wait! As the show started it became clear that something was different, the boxes were bright pink.

Tonight is a mother's day special, hence the boxes, should we have expected a mother to be selected, or would the producers double-bluff? Nope, Nancy was chosen. Nancy was a retired school-teacher, and not only was Nancy a mother of 3 children, but a grandmother too, of six grandchildren and 3 step-grandchildren (in Turkey). Nancy was a lovely grey-haired woman with a hint of Irene Handel. Noel informed Nancy that as it was the Mother's Day special (even though it was recorded in January) at the end of the game Nancy would have to select someone to present with a luxury spa weekend for two.

Round one: Bob opened the first box - £100, James opened box number 13 - Nancy was following a system - to reveal £3000. Nancy smiling, happily in control of her class. However Gary then open the £100,000, Helen followed with 1p, and finally Aaron with £35,000. A round of mixed fortunes. The banker was reminded by the pink boxes of the romper suits of his childhood - Noel suggested this was an indication of the origins of this strange, complex character. The banker also said that he always gave his mother a single white rose for Mother's day - how very Norman Bates. The offer was £2000, which both Nancy and Noel considered was 'good', of course it wasn't, and she said 'No Deal'.

Round two: Steve opened £50,000, 'OK' said Nancy very quickly, a hint of stress finally entering her voice, Jim opened 50p to balance the round and then she chose Nick, but we would have to wait until after the break to find out what was in it. On the return she explained that she had lapsed from her system and to get back on it, she was moving from Nick to Johnnie and box number 12 - it was £15,000. Nancy decided that people were not concentrating hard enough, she asked everyone to look at, and absorb, the blue lights around the edge of the studio. But Nancy herself was bathed in a red light. The banker offered £700, on the basis that it was "mummy's day" as in 'The curse of the mummy' and she was having a nightmare. Nancy rejected the offer.

Round three: Paddy (apparently not Paddy, see comments - does anyone know who it was?) opened £1000, 'You still have a huge number of blues to hit' said Noel, she returned to Nick who opened £10,000, 'You are terribly unbalanced' said Noel, 'Its not me, its the board' said the school teacher correcting his grammar/semmantics. Finally JT opened £250. She was using the 'PRS' system, we would find out later what it stood for, but I think the banker was close with 'Pretty Rubbish System'. The offer was £4700 plus a white rose - surely Nancy was not the banker's mother? She declined the offer.

Round four: Noel's assessment was 'it was rapidly becoming a one box game'. Gabrielle opened box 14 to reveal £750, the audience were beginning to get excited now, Nancy decided to speed things up announcing that she wanted to quickly go for boxes 22 and 15. The first turned out to be 10p, but then Noel called a break before Janet could open the second. This time Nancy stayed with her first decision and it turned out to be £5 - her first all-blue round. Things were now getting interesting - the offer was £18,500. Nancy seemed to have made up her mind, but asked the audience - surprisingly 50% of them said deal. The contestants gave a similar response. Greg a member of the production crew was called up, and then Michelle, another crew member - they joined her either side, but not to give an opinion just to hold her hand. Noel asked the question, and to great applause she said 'Deal'. Nancy said 'I am an OAP, the money means too much, I couldn't risk it'. Time would soon tell if this was the right move, but it felt right. PRS - stood for Pre-Random System, Nancy explained that she had pulled out all the numbers from a box before the show started, and then memorised the sequence - that in itself was a remarkable thing to do, people don't do memory much these days.

Round five: £5000 in box one, Steve opened £1, and finally Cathy opened £50. So Nancy was at least one deal too early, but she was not bothered. The banker would now have offered £55,000 - irrelevant.

Round six: £500, £75,000 and £20,000 from Lucy, leaving £1 and £250,000. The banker would now have offered £91,000. Nancy was simply 'thrilled to bits' to be leaving with £18,500, it didn't matter what the banker was now offering. But then the final box was opened, she only ever had £1 in her box.

A lovely old lady, and she played well, she was in complete control throughout. Her last decision of the show was to present the prize of a holiday spa to Lucy, as I say at least once in every report, EVERYBODY LOVES LUCY!!.