My mother wasn’t a superstitious person – except when it came to money spiders.
Finding one of the little critters on you is traditionally a portent of wealth, and it’s one of those old wives’ tales that has stuck with me since childhood.
So when I saw not one but two money spiders crawling on me in a matter of minutes on a summer’s afternoon in August 2023, I just knew it was a sign I was about to get lucky.
My three daughters often pop over to my home in Surrey for a glass of wine and I’d left them settling into the conservatory when I felt a little tickle and spotted a money spider crawling on me. A few minutes later I spotted one again – I don’t know if it was the same one but I told my daughters: ‘I’m going to do the Lottery tonight!’
I went straight on to my National Lottery app and bought a random line of numbers on a Set for Life game. My family usually enter the Lotto draws every Saturday but I rarely play Set for Life, where an annuity prize is up for grabs.
Then I thought nothing more of it. The draw was that evening but I never even bothered to check the winning numbers – after all, you never expect yours to come up.
That was until a few days later when on Sunday I was deleting the spam emails that flood my inbox. As I was scrolling through, I spotted an email that read, ‘Congratulations: You are a winner’.
I thought it may have been a £10 win, but when I checked the app it said I had won Set for Life – a prize of £10,000 given monthly for 30 years.
My family usually enter the Lotto draws every Saturday but I rarely play Set for Life, where an annuity prize is up for grabs
I double-checked my phone and showed it to my husband Keith so he could check I had read it correctly.
He was sceptical so I raced to my daughter’s house (she was living next-door at the time) and my son-in-law confirmed I had won!
I just couldn’t believe it.
Keith and I have always worked but it’s not always been easy for us and we’ve had money struggles throughout life. We’ve lived in our council house for 47 years and finally took the plunge and bought it in 1996. Obviously, you always think about what you would do if you won the Lottery – but you never actually expect it to happen.
Although I’d found out this life-changing news, I couldn’t confirm the win until Monday morning so I was stuck in limbo.
Keith plays bingo every Sunday night so my daughter, who doesn’t want to be named, took me out for a drink to a local bar to take my mind off it. But we just couldn’t help but dwell on how wild it was and also dream about the possibilities.
I was blown away by how much difference it would make to our lives.
On Monday morning, I was up at 8am to call the Lottery operator (then Camelot) which confirmed my line of numbers had won. Keith was still in bed so I sat on the sofa by myself, taking it all in. I’d recently celebrated my 70th birthday which meant I’d be receiving the monthly lump sums until age 100 – a total of £3.6million. I’m not planning on going anywhere any time soon but Allwyn (the current operator) pays out the remaining amount in a lump sum to a winner’s estate if they die before receiving all of the monthly payments.
Although it was my numbers that won the prize, I absolutely see the money as both mine and Keith’s. It’s ours to enjoy together.
The first time the £10,000 came into my bank account, I was at work in Waitrose. All my friends there knew I had won this prize so I showed one of them my phone as I could see the funds had just been pumped into my bank account. I was so excited – never would I have believed there would one day be £10,000 in my bank account!
Luckily, my friends don’t treat me any differently to before the win. They’re very loyal and even the regular customers in the shop were so excited for me.
They encouraged me to retire straight away and just enjoy the winnings. I left Waitrose in October 2023 even though I’d wanted to stay there for a while longer. I’ve always worked and the thought of not working was a strange thing for me to wrap my head around. But I’m so glad I did.
Luck would have it that my husband Keith, now 68, had retired from his job in a warehouse just two weeks before the win.
We had previously been on track for a modest retirement, but now we can treat ourselves without worrying about bills.
While many winners may set about moving into a swanky new home with their winnings, Keith and I didn’t want to move. We’ve been in this family home of ours for decades and we simply love the area, which is around half an hour’s drive from Guildford, Surrey.
I adore being in this house and it suits us perfectly. My three daughters live close by so I feel very lucky as I can see them regularly.
But we did make one major change to our house with the winnings. While it may seem mundane, the first thing I had on my Lottery wish list was to fit a bathroom in the upstairs of our three-bedroom property.
We’d previously only had one bathroom – and that was downstairs. So I was desperate to put in a bathroom so I wouldn’t have to walk downstairs to go to the loo in the middle of the night.
It’s these simple improvements that we’ve enjoyed making with our money; we also bought a new bed and I’ve just ordered a cosy new sofa.
Alongside the practical items for our home, we’ve also indulged in luxuries beyond our wildest dreams. The most lavish spend was a ten-day trip to Croatia last August with my daughters, their partners and my five-year old grandson.
We stayed in a villa five minutes from the border with Bosnia. It was beautiful – we had a huge terrace to watch the surrounding mountains which would change colour with the sun throughout the day.
We even hired a yacht, accompanied with its own crew, for one day. It picked us up from our villa and we had coffee and drinks while sailing around a couple of nearby islands. We were dropped off for lunch on Lopud – a small island off the southern Croatian coast and a favourite spot of Victoria Beckham.
Restaurant staff even greeted us as we left the yacht and escorted us to our table.
My family were in complete awe – they said it was the best day of their lives. It’s something we would had never been able to do before and it was a once in a lifetime experience.
Before the win, our annual week-long family holidays were spent in a Cornwall cottage every summer – often in St Ives or Carbis Bay – but now we’re jetting off to Crete this August for ten days.
We’re visiting Cornwall again this summer for my niece’s wedding – but this time we’re flying there! It’s a very long drive for only a weekend so I decided to book the one hour and 20 minute flight from London Gatwick. It’s lovely that we can do things like that now. I’ve booked an apartment and hire car for when we arrive.
I adore being able to do all these adventures with my family – and making memories with them.
We’ve also bought a caravan on the coast in Selsey, West Sussex which is just over an hour’s drive from us.
It’s close to the beach and a nature reserve so we can take our four-year-old Labrador, Reggie, for long walks with our grandson.
I’ve also taken him to watch The Lion King on one of our many theatre trips to London since my win. He was so engrossed and had little tears in his eyes at the end.
Just seeing his face when we do these things is wonderful. He embraces it and always tells me how much he loves his family.
Aside from the Lion King, we’ve also seen Take That and the Hot Wheels Monster Truck show at The 02 with my winnings. I’ve already booked to go to see the Starlight Express this year as I think my grandson will love it.
One of my favourite treats is getting us a taxi from our home to London when we watch a concert or a show in the capital.
I regularly treat my daughters with show tickets – we choose which ones to go to together. I also gave each of them a lump sum shortly after I won so they could be frivolous and spend it on what they want.
I also treat them to nail appointments and I pick up the bill when we go out for a family dinner.
The first Christmas after my win I did go a little overboard and took everyone out for lunch and bought so many presents for everyone.
I’m both a spender and a saver by nature. So even now, I try to put a little bit of my winnings aside into a savings account every month. I was brought up to be quite careful with money and I’ve never been able to be frivolous with my earnings. But now I can be.
On my supermarket shop I can now pop things in the basket without looking at the price and I’ve started to splash more on clothes in John Lewis, but I still can’t bring myself to spend too much.
For example, one thing I can’t quite do is splurge on luxury designer handbags. I’ve bought expensive handbags but I could never fork out thousands for a Mulberry one.
Winners’ Advisor Andy Carter, who helps Lottery winners come to terms with their new-found wealth, says Lottery winners are desperate to stay true to their value – and even refuse to shop at a different supermarket to show they haven’t changed.
And it’s true – my values are still the same as they have always been. I grew up very modestly in Surrey. My mother was a widow and had a large family so we didn’t have a lot growing up and I’ve never expected to have a lot. My mother would be over the moon with my win! She has been gone for 42 years this year and she had a tough time bringing up five children on her own. She would be beside herself now to think we have all this. I would have enjoyed treating her if she was still alive.
I’m lucky to be enjoying life more than I otherwise would have been but I’d like to think I haven’t changed.
And as I worked in Waitrose for 17 years, I still shop there to this day. We have also become friends with some other winners we have met at National Lottery events. It’s quite exciting to share our experience with them and to look at how different families deal with their winnings. We had legal advice and financial advice from Allwyn at the outset. I haven’t had any since then as I wanted to enjoy my winnings for the first year but this year I’ll start taking financial advice again.
I’m not an unlucky person but I always believed I’d be the woman who never won anything. How wrong I was.
- As told to Lucy Evans
- Do you have a Lottery story to share? Email l.evans@dailymail.co.uk
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