Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
MONEYBAGS
Wife had £21m lotto ticket in her handbag for a week ...with no idea she had won
A COUPLE scooped £21million on the lottery when the wife found the winning ticket in her handbag – a week after the draw.
And David and Donna Stickley have told of the moment they realised their lives had changed for ever.
Donna, of Slough, Berks, said: “I was shell-shocked.” David added: “We want to sit on a beach somewhere. Then decide what to do with it all.”
DAVID and Donna Stickley went about their daily routines for a week, unaware she was carrying a lottery ticket in her handbag that would change their lives.
And the couple last night told of the astonishing moment they realised they had scooped £21million – but they still refused to believe it.
Donna, 48, even carried on watching the royal wedding while she waited for her husband to get home to ring Camelot.
As the couple toasted their win, David, 58, said he felt “luckier than Prince Harry”, adding: “These sort of things don’t happen to us.”
Donna had put the lottery ticket in her handbag after buying it on Saturday May 12.
And last Saturday she finally got round to handing it to a supermarket checkout worker who told her to call Camelot as she had won “more than £500”. Donna said: “I was shell- I thought we had won £1,000 or something. I went home and rang David, who was working.
“He said to look it up online and when I went on the internet I couldn’t quite believe what came up.
“I thought it was £2million, the decimal points didn’t quite compute.
“I rang David and told him what it was and he said that’s not £2million, that’s £21million.”
David added: “When Donna called all I could hear was funny breathing down the phone, she was all in a tizz.
“I told her to put it somewhere safe so we could deal with it when I was back from work. We are still in shock.”
Despite their new-found wealth, the couple, of Slough, Berks, insisted they will both be back at work on Tuesday as normal.
Donna, an office manager at an engineering firm for 20 years, said: “We enjoy our jobs and we like the people we work with, so that’s what we are going to do.”
But the pair, who only tied the knot in March after 20 years together, will now splash out on a honeymoon.
Aircraft refueller David said: “I was fortunate to travel the world with my previous employer and see some amazing places… so it’s going to be a case of, ‘Donna, where do you want to go, girl?’ We might just put a pin a map. We want to sit on a beach someshocked.
where and regroup. Then we can decide what we want to do with it all.
“We are very normal people and we don’t want drastic change.
“We are just going to sit back and try and comprehend what’s happened really.
“We are having the house redecorated in June so that will go ahead first.
“Do you know how hard it is to find a decorator who can paint a straight line? We’ve just found one so that has to go ahead. I don’t want the relationships we have with friends to change because we aren’t changing.
“And I hope that they don’t change. We are still the same people.
“I want to be able to go to the pub and be treated as normal customer… including being thrown out when I’ve fallen off the bar stool and all that.”
And David, who drives a Volkswagen transporter combi, insisted he will not be blowing the cash on fancy cars.
He said: “I am not going to go out and buy a Porsche or a Ferrari or something. Everybody dreams of having a nice car. But if I wrote the cheque I’d be in tears.”
Donna also plans to buy herself a new handbag, after David announced plans to display the one that held their winning ticket on the wall.
The pair said the biggest relief is they now have the cash to take care of Donna’s 76-year-old dad and David’s mum, 85, from Hayes, West London.
Donna’s niece Laura Svennson, of Halstead, Essex, said she was overjoyed for her ‘“lovely” aunt.
She said: “That is just ridiculous. I am so happy for them.” David, who turns 59 tomorrow, and Donna wed at a local register office in front of friends and family. He even brought his late father’s ashes as the sixth guest.
The lucky couple initially tried to keep the win a secret, but decided to go public after struggling to contain the news. They are the National Lottery’s 5,000th millionaires, with their £21,044,592 win. But they plan to continue playing the game every week.
It’s going to be a case of, ‘Donna, where do you want to go, girl?’ We want a beach DAVID ON PLANS TO SPEND SOME OF THEIR WINNINGS ON A HONEYMOON