York man wins £1K – and plans to spend it on the most 1970s thing ever

If you won a cool grand, what would you splash out on?

York man Mark Robinson knew exactly how he would spend his £1,000 prize money – “escaping the mother-in-law”.

Mark, from Huntington, was the winner in a competition run by Minster FM and the York BID over Christmas.

In conjunction with the BID (Business Improvement District), Minster FM ran Mince Pie Non-Stop, a pop-up radio station playing nothing but Christmas hits during December.

And there was a competition to win £1,000. To enter people needed to find the password ‘Rudolph’ – which was shown under the Parliament Street Christmas tree – and enter it on the website.

Summer house plan

[arve url=”https://www.facebook.com/minsterfm/videos/10157071655800299/” mode=”normal” title=”Mince Pie FM winner” /]

Chosen at random from the winning entries, Mark was revealed as the winner live on the Minster FM Breakfast Show with Ben Fry.

Mark’s response? “Merry New Year!”, adding he was “well chuffed”.

Ben asked Mark what he was going to spend the money on. “I’m just looking to buy a summer house actually,” he said.

“It’s for the mother-in-law when she comes to visit so I don’t have to sit in the house with her!”

Ben said: “Part of our remit here at Minster FM is to change lives – and we’ve done that.

“If we can separate you and your mother-in-law, Mark, it’s job done.”

Excellent response

Executive director of the York BID Andrew Lowson said: “We are delighted for Mark and really pleased with the reaction to Mince Pie Non-Stop.

“It was a fun festive project, with a serious objective to promote the York city centre to local people.”

He said more than 400 people came into the city centre to take part in the competition.

The station had an estimated 100,000 listeners in December, Andrew said, “with the sole advertising being messages about what’s happening in York city centre.

“We believe this was a contributor to why Christmas 2017 was so popular with locals and tourists alike.”