A retired couple plan on building their dream home after landing a cool £5 million in the lottery.
Tommy Parker, 68, and his wife Linda, 67, scooped an incredible £5,014,254 in last week’s must-be-won Lottery draw.
The couple from Prestonpans, East Lothian, have bought their ticket from the same shop, at roughly the same time, for the last 16 years.
But after celebrating the life-changing win with friends and family — Tommy got back to painting his kitchen.
Today (Tues), the retired caravan park foreman said: “I know now that I am a millionaire I can get someone to do this for me, but I’ve started the job so I’ll finish it too.
“I need to occupy my time with something while I think.
“Since I retired, I always go and buy a paper at 9.30am and also buy my ticket.
“I always do the same routine – I take it home and put it under the biscuit barrel to keep safe. It’s kept up high on a shelf in the kitchen so the wife can’t reach it.
“I knew it was a must-be-won draw on Wednesday. We had gone to bed and I checked the winning numbers on the TV.
“I knew straight away we had five and woke the wife to tell her I thought we’d won some money on the lottery.
“I checked again and realised we also had the bonus ball too and the jackpot had rolled down to everyone who had these numbers.
“This meant we had won over £5million. That’s the quickest I’ve ever seen my wife get out of bed, ever.”
With his head still spinning at the thought of winning and shaking all over, Tommy contacted his two daughters to share the fantastic news.
Younger daughter Diane said: “It just doesn’t happen to people like us.”
Their eldest daughter Tracey was getting her nails done when she got the call and couldn’t sit still long enough to get them finished.
Linda finds getting around unaided difficult, so Tommy has always dreamt of building her a home one day.
He added: “My son in law, who is a builder, always said that when we win the lottery he will build us a place.
“I can’t believe that this is real and we can actually do it, but we hope to stay in East Lothian as we love it here.”
Originally from the Newcastle area, they also plan to look after the children and their grandchild, and hope to go on another cruise if they can find one that is suitable.
They’ve not thought about anything else to spend their money on yet and are both looking forward to a great retirement.
The Lotto jackpot had to be won in the draw after the jackpot reaches £22 million.
If no one matches all six main numbers then the prize rolls down to the next prize tier where there are winners.
On Wednesday 18 October it was players matching just five main numbers and the bonus ball who shared just over £25 million.
Tommy’s numbers were a combination of family birthdays, with the exception of the number 44 which Tommy chose as it ‘seemed to come up’ and he thought it might be a winner one day.
Their winning numbers were 07, 11, 12, 22, 27, 44 and they bought their winning ticket from Z&S Choudhry in Prestonpans, East Lothian.
