Mr Smith and his wife were but two of forty-three people who thought they had won a holiday cruising down the Rhine in a bingo competition run by the Weatherfield Recorder when Ken Barlow was its editor. The problem had been caused by an error at the printers.
The couple called at the offices of the paper where Mrs Smith demanded to know if they had won as they had met the requirements of sending in the first completed card whereas her cynical husband had always felt that their win was too good to be true and had to almost drag her out of the premises as she started to vociferously complain. Ken had to hold a raffle of all the "winners" which satisfied no one except the person whose name was pulled in the draw.