Neighbours hit the jackpot!
We’d sold the house in March but we pulled out for a few reasons. It’s quite lucky that we stayed!
Suzy Hawkins
NEIGHBOURS and friends from one street are celebrating together after they shared a £210,000 lottery prize.
The seven people from Earl Shilton each landed £30,000 with the People’s Postcode Lottery.
Their Masefield Place postcode, was announced as a winner at the weekend.
Friends Joanne Green, 45, and 40-year-old Suzy Hawkins were among those to get the unexpected windfall and found out how much they had won at the same time.
Lottery ambassador Danyl Johnson presented them with their prize cheques, leaving the pals stunned.
Joanne said: “I’m in shock, to be honest. I didn’t expect it all. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it.”Suzy
said: “It’s pretty amazing. It’s hard to explain, we’ve never won anything this big before.”
She said the pair both began to play the lottery after her father’s neighbour won a prize.
When Suzy joined, Joanne followed suit, adding: “I thought, I can’t have her win and not me, I’ve got to do it, too!”
Suzy almost missed out on the win as the family was all set to move away from the winning postcode earlier this year.
“We had sold the house in March but we pulled out for a few reasons. We just wanted to leave it a bit longer.
“It’s quite lucky that we stayed!” Suzy plans to use the winnings to help with a long-awaited break for the family.
She said: “We’ve got a holiday booked for Florida which has been postponed for two years, so we’ve got that next year for me, my partner and our four kids.
“We’ll do Disney and Universal Studios, all the theme parks. It’s going to help them to have a trip to remember.”
Joanne also had a holiday in mind to celebrate a special anniversary. She said: “I think we’re also going to have a family holiday. With two years of not going away we might treat ourselves to something special.
“My husband and I got married 15 years ago in St Lucia and we always said that we’d love to go back. It might have to wait until next year, but hopefully we can go back to the same resort where we got married.”
Dawn Bennett, 63, was another winner on the street to receive a prize and her family cheered as her winnings were revealed.
She said she was not sure what she would spend her winnings on at first and joked: “I’m just going to put it in the bank and look at it. I never win anything, it’s lovely.
“I’ll treat the kids, obviously, and I’d like to go back to
Iceland – the children treated us with a trip there for our anniversary and I’d like to go back and, if I can, probably take the children and have a nice holiday with them.”
Dawn also said she wants to treat her grandchildren with some of the winnings: “I’ll need to speak to them and see what they’d like.
“I know my granddaughter would like a horse, but I don’t know if that will come,” she said.
Michael Mimms, 58, was another resident left stunned after receiving a £30,000 cheque.
When asked what he might do with the winnings, Michael was unsure but added: “I don’t know, I might get a hot tub.”
The other winners opted to remain anonymous.
People’s Postcode Lottery ambassador Danyl Johnson presented the winners with their prize cheques and sent his congratulations to all the winners.
He said: “This is what People’s Postcode Lottery is all about, friends and neighbours winning together.
“It was so nice to meet some of our winners in Earl Shilton and give them this surprise. I have no doubt that they’ll have a great time enjoying their winnings.”
People’s Postcode Lottery costs
£10 a month to play and there are guaranteed winners every day.
People play with their postcode and are automatically entered into all draws.
A minimum of 33 per cent of ticket sales goes directly to charities and players have helped raise more than £750 million to date for thousands of good causes across Britain and internationally.