Life changing

£1Million flies in from Greece

If she’d known it was going to make her a millionaire, Donna Smith says she would have kept her precious ticket in her hand, instead of ten rows away in an overhead locker on her way back from Greece!

Co-op worker Donna bought the EuroMillions ticket just before she jetted off to Corfu on a two week break, but didn’t check it until she got home to Chichester.

She said, “I buy Lottery tickets on birthdays and holidays and when I returned from holiday I asked my work mates to check the ticket for me and it came up with a message saying I needed to call Camelot.

“That was the longest walk home from work I have ever done. I kept running into friends and, of course, it’s the most natural thing in the world to stop and chat, especially when you are just back from holiday but I was desperate to get home and make the call.

“While I was phoning Camelot my daughter Bryony checked online and immediately burst into tears but I kept saying no, no, you must have got it wrong. When Camelot told me I had won £1 million I still couldn’t believe it. I went out to a hen night that evening and found it very difficult to keep the news quiet and my daughter had to go off to work and it took a bit of time for her to calm down”.

With £1Million in her pocket she has no trouble deciding what to spend it on – she is wasting no time and is already buying three houses, one to live in, one for Bryony and one for her parents.

She said, “I’m renting at the moment so this really is a life-changing win for me. I bought the ticket from the Co-op in Selsey where I work and I was asked whether I was going to stop working. I love my job so I’m definitely going to carry on. My boss now thinks I’m a lucky mascot”!

The National Lottery has been changing the lives of winners and supporting good causes across the UK since 1994. In that time, there have been more than 7,000 new millionaires created and by playing The National Lottery you raise over £4 million for Good Causes every dayΔ.

Discover more
Please wait