WE SHOULD BE SO LUCKY
What would you do if you won the National Lottery? Marion McMullen looks back at 25 years of Jackpot big spenders
1 THERE have been more than 5,500 millionaires created since the first National Lottery draw took place 25 years on November 19, 1994, and winners have spent their cash windfalls on an array of surprise purchases, including a car filled with Easter eggs, international flights to see Robbie Williams perform around the world and dog biscuits.
2 CHERYL BRUDENELL, from Stocktonon-Tees, used part of her £916,915 win to fund what she calls her “Robbie Hobby”. The 52-year -old has seen singer Robbie Williams perform around 40 times across the world since the 1997 windfall. The mother-of-two, who now lives in a five-bedroom home with husband Mark, finally met Robbie last year in Las Vegas.
3 SHEFFIELD winner Ray Wragg, aged 81, and his late wife Barbara had never left the country before winning £7,649,520 in 2000 and had spent holidays in Torquay for 31 consecutive years. They went on their first cruise after winning the lottery and also bought a Range Rover and filled it with Easter eggs for a local school in Sheffield.
4 ESSEX mature student and single mother-of-two Tracy Field had been diagnosed with cancer before she won more than £2.5 million in 2008. The 51-year-old had been working three jobs at the time. She went out at midnight in her pyjamas and bought a box of dog biscuits because she “couldn’t think of what else to buy”. Tracy later bought a £430,000 home and properties for her children.
5 HAIRDRESSER Deana Sampson was living in a council flat in Sheffield and had just £3.60 in her bank account when she won £5.4 million in 1996. The 58-year-old said the first thing she bought was a pair of trainers. She later went on to buy an £800,000 yacht.
6 SAM LANGE, from East Sussex, had been saving £50 a week to travel to see her father in New Zealand when she won £1,575,878 in 1999. The 47-year-old had not seen her dad for four years and visited him for a month as part of a £5,000 holiday. She also used some of her winnings to extend her existing house with her 53-year-old partner Malcolm Russell, his son and their three children.
7 TRISH EMSON, from Rotherham, had been saving for IVF treatment after trying for a baby for more than five years with her partner Graham Norton when she won £1,747,728 in 2003. Shortly after the win “we discovered I was pregnant,” she said.
The 49-year-old bought her son Benjamin, now 15, a babygro that read “Millionaire in training”.
8 WELSH motherof-two Geraldine Bradley said the first thing she bought after winning more than £3.5 million in 2006 was a £9.99 KFC meal to celebrate. The 50-year-old bought a new Mercedes-Benz four months later and now lives with her husband Christopher in a fourbedroom house with three reception rooms, a snooker room, a maze and a lake.
9 SARAH COCKINGS, from Whitley Bay, near Newcastle, used part of her £3 million plus win in 2005 to pay for ‘boob’ jobs for herself and her sisters Alex and Emma. The mother-of-three, inset, also went back to university to study after her win and bought her first car.
10 CORNISH winner Viv Moss, aged 68, said she felt sick for a fortnight after winning more than £6 million in 1998 and described the experience as “like an unexpected death”. She moved from a four-bedroom to a five-bedroom house and swapped her eight-year-old Ford Focus for a Bentley.