Teacher's £100k gameshow win 'a massive surprise'

A teacher who won £100,000 on ITV gameshow The 1% Club said it took about a week for it to sink in that it had really happened.

Maccisha Medford from Stafford had always watched the show and said she had done "fairly well at home", but never applied as it is filmed in the week, when she is working.

Her husband encouraged her to give it a go while she was on maternity leave, but she said she "didn't think in a million years" she would get on, as "it's all people with proper funny stories and really interesting things about them."

After her victory was aired at the weekend, she said "Saturday night was mental" with messages, and on Monday she took treats into school.

As part of the application process, she provided two funny facts - one that a bikeability instructor once mistook her for a child, and the other that she is "ridiculously clumsy" and has broken bones in the same foot seven times.

On the show, she said as the questions got harder and harder, her heart rate started to leap.

But it was also a nervy start, as she got one of the questions wrong as they were testing out the tablets the contestants use to answer on.

"Once we'd done two or three, I was like OK, I can be calm again, until we got to about 25, 20%.. we're getting close now."

To win £100,000, contestants have to answer a question only 1% of the UK would know.

When she got to the final question, she knew she had an answer that "semi-worked", but added it was "a massive surprise when I actually got it right, you never in the moment think you've got it right."

Because the episode was recorded in October, and the result had to be kept quiet, bar from close family, she said "the further it got away the more I was like, did that happen, did I dream that?"

Medford, who is on maternity leave from Walton Priory Middle School, Stone, said the prize money means the family can enjoy time together.

"My daughter's now six months old, she was three months old when we recorded it, so I can actually have a year off with her, we can take her on nice holidays and do nice little day trips."

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