I should be so lucky...

By Natalie Grice BBC Wales News Online

It's the luck of the draw .... he's got the luck of the devil ..... unlucky in love ... lucked out - this thing called luck would seem to play a big part in many people's lives judging by the number of expressions it is used in.

But does it even exist? People in Wales certainly think so.

In a survey, the Welsh were the most likely to consider themselves "very lucky" out of the British population.

The dictionary definition of luck is "success or failure apparantly brought by chance rather than through one's own actions".

Lucky survey

18% of Welsh people consider themselves very lucky

Extrovert, optimistic people are more likely to have luck

In an international survey, the French thought they were the luckiest nation

Only 10% of Scots think they are very lucky

Interestingly, people who thought they were lucky were also optimistic, extrovert types of people.

So maybe this thing called luck is simply a question of how people perceive their lives to be - the old half full or half empty bottle scenario.

BBC News Online decided to carry out its own completely non-scientific survey of random Welsh people on the street to see how their luck was holding up.

Young mother Victoria Hamblin, taking her four-week-old son Jack out for a walk, certainly thought her luck was in.

Victoria: Birth of healthy son was lucky

"I've got a lovely healthy son after a difficult pregnancy and we're planning to get married in 2004," she said.

"Luck comes to you but then you've got to work at it to keep it going.

"I've been unlucky and lucky. We've had our fair share of unluckyness but now everything seem to be going - hopefully, touch wood - to plan.

"In the past few years, I've been described as unlucky but I'm very lucky now with a healthy son and partner and everything going well."

So, Victoria would seem to bear out the survey's findings - a Welsh girl who is optimistic and, she thinks, also lucky.

Care assistant Janet Roberts, on the other hand, was not so sure.

She said: "I just don't think it's luck, I think you've got to work for what you get, and earn it.

But she did concede it was fortunate or unfortunate that some things happen.

"If you've been out driving in the car and if you'd left five minutes earlier and there was an accident and you were going down the same road and you've just missed it by seconds because you were late, I suppose that's very fortunate.

"I have been one number out at the lottery, but that's not luck because you pick the numbers."

Her colleague Julie Denver, however, does believe in luck. Smiling, she said: "Not me, but there are some lucky people out there.

"I'm a bingo fanatic and I did have a big won about five years ago when I won the regional.

"But it was skill - no, it was luck, pot luck."

While acknowledging some unfortunate events in her family's lives, she concluded: "I think I'm pretty lucky in a number of things.

And does it help that she considers herself an optimistic person? "Yes, I'm bubbly, get on with it, happy-go-lucky.

"To a certain extent you make your own luck, it's what you make of it - you can be lucky in something but it's you that's helped it along."

Postman Derhim Muthana has no belief in luck - for the pracitising Muslim, predestination is everything.

Derhim Muthana: Life is predestined

"It's all faith, nothing to do with luck whatsoever. Everything is God's will," he said.

Ironically though, Mr Muthana's colleagues consider him to be a very lucky person, after he won £1,000 in a works' draw.

"They say 'what a jammy so-and-so', but it's not luck.

"Someone's got to win and that's it.

"If it happens, it happens, you pay your money and everyone's got a chance.

And the final word went to a Scotsman who has adopted Wales as his home.

John Hart had the sort of experience which would make anyone believe that luck does exist.

"I was involved in a head-on crash and I managed to step out. It was luck more than anything - both drivers could have been killed."

He added: "I think some things go for you and some go against you."

Maybe the luck of the Welsh had indeed rubbed off on him.

University of Hertfordshire psychologist Dr Richard Wiseman surveyed 14,000 people in the UK and published the results in his forthcoming book, The Luck Factor.