Never Forget Your Ticket

Blackburn Rovers fan Trevor Noon would probably have been happy to receive a cheque for 1p from team captain Lucas Neill, at the club’s training ground. But as it was, Camelot had arranged for his cheque to be for £908,711 as he’d won a share of the jackpot on 13/12/06 with the numbers 4,12,14,20,46,49.

Youngest son Scott heard about the win before his father had told him, so texted him to see if it was all a joke. In fact the news spread so quickly that Trevor ran round to his wife at her Co-op workplace to tell her the news before anyone else did. The couple have three sons and middle son Liam will be finding his £20,000 student debt has been cleared and then the whole family is looking forward to moving to a new house. The move is something they’d always planned but not been able to afford.

Like many jackpot winners, Trevor thought he’d won £10 and then went on to realise he had all six numbers and a jackpot winning ticket. But he does not plan to leave his job as an engineer at a metal firm, and wife Elaine plans to stay working at the Co-op, and the family will stay living in Great Harwood.

A week later Stephen Martin was so relieved that he’d remembered to buy his RAF syndicate’s ticket, which he did at 5.30pm on Saturday night, online. Just a few hours later he heard the draw and thought the numbers sounded familiar so he went upstairs to his computer to check. The group have been playing the lottery since it started in 1994, and now they have won a £1,372,693 share of the jackpot for Saturday 16/12/06 with the numbers 5,8,11,27,30,46. The syndicate has 10 members made up from family, friends and ex-airmen like Stephen. He says none of them will have to worry about paying for Christmas this year, which is a fantastic feeling.

- 21/12/06