Happy winners
Nigel Page and his partner Justine Laycock, who live near Cirencester, Gloucestershire, told of their plans after deciding to go public about their mammoth £56m win.
Mr Page’s winning ticket shared Friday’s overall EuroMillions jackpot of £113m with one other, which was bought in Spain.
Speaking at a press conference, Ms Laycock, 41, said: “It’s so strange as I’d been out the night before with friends and I’d bought a ticket as well.
“We’d been talking about what we thought would happen if you won.
“I joked that the machine would explode, smoke would come out from it with ticker tape and glitter and six gold-painted Egyptian men would come out and carry me off. It was slightly different!”
Mr Page, 43, was left shaking and speechless after checking his numbers online and woke his partner of eight years to break the news.
Ms Laycock said: “All he said was, ‘I need you urgently, I need to show you something’.
“I thought something awful had happened but he took me to the computer. There it was on the screen.
“His hands were shaking so much he couldn’t pick up the phone so I called the lottery line and they confirmed it was true. We were the £56 million winners.”
She went on: “We’ve got a lovely long list of people we’re going to help and make their lives so much more comfortable.
“We couldn’t have wished for this. It’s amazing. We are going to utilise this 100%. We have family and friends who are very close and we are going to sort them out.”
Mr Page, who runs a property maintenance business, and Ms Laycock, an estate agent, have three children from previous relationships – Mr Page’s daughter Ella, 12, and Ms Laycock’s son and daughter, Jacob, 11, and Georgia, 15.
The couple said they celebrated hitting the jackpot with a breakfast of bacon butties at the cafe in their local Waitrose, while they waited for the Camelot adviser to arrive.
Neither intends to return to work.
Matthew Fuller, Ms Laycock’s boss at estate agency Cain and Fuller, said she phoned him on Sunday lunchtime to tell him the news.
“She said: ‘You’ll never guess what but I’ve won the Lottery,’” he recalled.
“The second line of the conversation was: ‘I won’t be in on Monday’.”
Mr Page, a keen skydiver, is considering keeping himself busy by building “a wind tunnel so I can have a play in that”.
Meanwhile the couple’s children have been talking about potential new pets – a pony and a tarantula.
The jackpot surpasses the £91m paid out in November last year which was shared between two UK tickets.
Les Scadding and wife Sam, from south Wales, and the Lucky Seven syndicate, from Liverpool, who both banked a cheque for £45.5m, now stand in joint second place on the National Lottery’s Rich List.
Based on figures released when the Sunday Times Rich List was published last April, Mr Page and his partner will be wealthier than Oasis stars Noel and Liam Gallagher (£52m), film director Guy Ritchie (£50m) and actor Sir Michael Caine (£45m).
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£8 Million Winner Jennifer Southall
This is how you do champagne: Lotto winner Jennifer Southall cracks into a bottle of champagne as she celebrates winning £8million
Refreshingly, the divorced mother-of-three has already made plans that will make a big hole in her £8,372,751 fortune as she aims to fulfil her dream of a lifestyle to match those of the Hollywood superstars she has spent the last decade watching on-screen.
The job was abandoned soon after her numbers came up, shortly followed by the spending spree of her life in which she spent £1,500 in just 24 hours, and her rented council house home will soon go the same way.
It will be replaced by a big house with a swimming pool, a “pretty red car” plus driving lessons, and a luxury holiday or two for the whole family once they’ve applied for passports.
Yesterday Miss Southall was adapting quickly to her new status as a millionairess.
“Now I know what it is like to be rich – and it’s fantastic,” she said as the cheque was handed over in her home town of Newport, Gwent.
“I’ve never even been on a plane or needed a passport. My family are mad about Egypt so that is one place I want to go as soon as I won the jackpot.
“But then this morning somebody mentioned New York and a bell rang in my head. I’ll go there as well.
“I’ve seen the stars in the movies for years and now its my turn.
“I’ve also always wanted to live in a big house with a swimming pool – and a bedroom for me that’s far enough away from the kids that I won’t be able to hear their music blaring anymore.”
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The Sturt family from Dorking – winners of £26 million on Euromillions!
The Sturt family from Dorking are now fifth place in the National Lottery Rich List. The four members of the family syndicate won half of the EuroMillions jackpot in the draw on Friday 15th January, to bank a stunning £26,151,124.20.
Father George, 75, and his three children Colin, Gary and Teresa make up the syndicate, but with a further eight grandchildren and two great grandchildren the win will transform the entire family’s life.
George, who buys the family’s ticket every week, first discovered the win on Saturday morning. He said: “I woke up and had a bit of a funny feeling – I always check the ticket at the shop, but decided to bring up the results on Teletext. I could see I had all of the numbers and knew it must be quite big, but wasn’t sure how much so I called my daughter to come up to the house.”
Teresa checked the ticket and was soon sat in a state of shock at the size of the win. She said: “When you dream of winning you think you’d scream but you just stare at each other and are completely gob smacked – initially you don’t want to believe it in case it isn’t true.” George called his sons, Colin and Gary, who after a little persuasion that it wasn’t all a wind up joined their father and sister.
The family are convinced the win is a gift from their wife and mother Maureen, who sadly passed away last July. George said: “She loved the children and she will be so happy that they are all taken care of. She will have a big grin on her face.” Teresa said: “She is still part of our lives everyday and we were all really close to her. All of my children immediately said it was a sign – it was Nanny.”
George plans to support a number of local charities with his win, who have helped the family across the years, but his biggest pleasure will come from seeing his family secure. He said: “It is for the kids really. They have had tough times and to know that the whole family will benefit from the win is very satisfying. It will make such a difference and will help in so many ways.”
Les Scadding and his wife Samantha Peachey-Scadding, from Caerleon in South Wales, are now joint second place in The National Lottery Rich List, after winning a staggering £45,570,835.50. They banked half of the jackpot in the EuroMillions draw on Friday 6th November 2009.
Les and Samantha quietly celebrated with a Sunday lunch in their favourite restaurant, after learning of the win on Saturday evening. Les went to Tesco on Spytty Road in Newport, where he bought his Lucky Dip ticket, to buy some groceries on Saturday evening, and decided to check his EuroMillions ticket on the way out. He recalled, “When I asked the people behind the counter to check the numbers, the machine just printed out a pink slip, telling me to contact Camelot. I thought I might have won around £50,000, and I rushed home to tell Samantha.”
Les got back to the house, where Samantha was doing some work at her computer. She immediately went online to check their numbers, where it was revealed that two winners in the UK had shared over £90 million.
Les said: “It was a very funny couple of minutes. We just looked at each other while it sunk in, before we got on the phone to Camelot.”
However, the couple took the staggering news in their stride, and on Sunday went for lunch at their favourite restaurant, The Priory, in Caerleon, with Samantha’s mother. Les said: “We always go to The Priory, as I know the owner really well, so we wouldn’t have gone anywhere different. We ordered a couple of bottles of Champagne and just had a quiet chat about it all, and tried to let it all sink in.”
Les, who has 3 grown-up children from his first marriage, is a qualified mechanic, but has worked for many years as a driver for various haulage companies. He is currently out of work, and had been looking for temporary driving contracts until Friday’s incredible win. Samantha runs her own marketing company, and works from home. She said: “There is quite a lot of pressure involved in running your own business, and I’ve been working 12 hour days recently. This win means I can take my foot off the pedal and relax a bit.”
Les says his first purchase will probably be replacing his Citroen C5 with a Range Rover Sport. The couple also plan to move to a bigger house, but say they will probably stay in South Wales, as well as possibly buying a holiday home.
Les and Samantha are now joint first in The National Lottery Rich List ahead of two other EuroMillions winners; Glasgow postal worker Angela Kelly who won £35.4m on 10th August 2007 and Brian and Joan Caswell from Bolton who won £24.9million in June.
