Premonition leads to £250K TV win

A British civil servant who scooped £250,000 (€403,000) on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? today told how a premonition helped him on the road to riches.

Den Hewitt, of Chester-le-Street, County Durham, England had a feeling he was going to be asked to give the height of the Eiffel Tower in feet as an eliminator question before winning through to the final of the hit quiz show.

So when a researcher rang to ask him that exact question he was able to give the right answer 986ft - and secure a place among the 10 contestants.

He said today: ‘‘When the researcher asked me I sat there thinking, ‘did he really just say that’ before I blurted out the answer.

‘‘Before they even rang me back I was convinced I would be one of the 10 closest people.’’

Den, who works for the Department of Education, had a further premonition his £1m (€1.6m) question would be to name The Beatles’ last number one single - The Ballad of John and Yoko.

Den was so sure he even wrote the Beatles question down on a piece of paper which he was going to produce if quizmaster Chris Tarrant got to ask him the final question.

But he stopped at the £500,000 (€807,000) question, which language is also known as Lettish?

The correct answer was Latvian but Den decided he was not sure enough.

‘‘Unfortunately I didn’t have a premonition about that one,’’ he said.