Fife teacher uses game show winnings to support cancer charity

The Fife teacher who won £20,000 on a television quiz show is donating some of her winnings to a cancer charity – and she’s hoping others will show their support too.

Rachel Richardson, from Kirkcaldy, scooped the cash prize after beating four of the Chasers from the popular ITV show The Chase with just one second to go in its spin off series Beat The Chasers.

Her win aired last week and since then she’s had a huge number of messages from friends, family, former colleagues and past pupils.

Now she’s doing what she can to raise cash for Cancer Research UK.

The English teacher explained: “I was going to just give a donation to the charity myself but I got so many messages from colleagues, ex pupils, family and friends I came up with the idea that I would do a fundraising page.

“I’m totally not a social media person, I don’t have facebook or anything, and when I first started the page friends were posting it on their social media.

“But I thought if I’m going to try and do this I should really be posting it myself so I joined up to Facebook this week.

“The fundraising is going really well so far.

“I put £500 in myself to kick start things and within two days it reached £1700.

“I’m going to be 50 in January and rather than moping about I decided I’m going to try and spend my year doing more positive things.

“Going on Beat The Chasers was one of those things.

“I set a challenge to myself to lose 50lbs before I’m 50 and I started that in August last year.

“By Christmas I had done half of it – the first 25lbs was the easy part.

“So I thought I would combine it with fundraising for Cancer Research.

“If I know I have to keep going for a good cause it will motivate me.

“I have said I will add another £500 to the pot when I reach my target in January and the idea is I would like everyone to contribute whatever amount they want now and if they can, the same amount in January if I reach my target.”

Rachel, who teaches at St Andrews RC High School and works with the SQA, chose to support the charity as it is close to her heart.

“In 2011, I lost my amazing sister Lynda to brain cancer and in the same year my equally amazing brother Steve had to battle through a stem cell transplant and defeat non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

“It was a horrendous year for our family.

“At this time when charities are suffering due to the lockdown wanted to do something and the win on the Chasers kickstarted me.”

During her appearance on the TV quiz show, Rachel banked banked £1000 in the ‘cash builder’ round answering multiple choice questions, before opting to take on four Chasers in a head to head to win a bigger cash prize.With 60 seconds on her clock, she was up against Jenny Ryan, Paul Sinha, Shaun Wallace and Mark Labbett who had just 45 seconds on their clock, giving her a 15 second time advantage.And Rachel won with just one second to spare, bringing home £20,000.

Rachel’s fundraising page for Cancer Research UK can be found here

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