I found £21m in my handbag
(… on lottery ticket I ignored for a week!)
AN OFFICE manager had a £21million lottery ticket in her handbag for a week before she realised she had won the jackpot.
Donna Stickley, 48, and husband David, 58, had been buying lottery tickets for around 20 years – but rarely checked their numbers straight after the draw.
So it was not until Mrs Stickley went to buy her ticket for the following week that she found out they had won.
Despite becoming multi-millionaires, the couple have no immediate plans to stop working or move from their ‘modest’ semi-detached home in Cippenham, Slough.
But they are planning to splash out on an extravagant belated honeymoon, after getting married in a small registry office ceremony two months ago.
Mrs Stickley, who works at an engineering firm, said: ‘I went to put the next week’s lottery [numbers] on … I only check the tickets with the retailer when I go to get the ticket for the next week.
‘The lady said I needed to ring a number because [I had won] more than £500.
‘ I was shell- shocked, but I thought at that point I’d probably only won £1,000 if I was lucky.’
After looking on the internet, Mrs Stickley then believed the couple had won £2million – but she had misread the figure.
Mr Stickley, an aircraft re-fueller at Babcock International, was at work when his wife called him.
He said: ‘All I could hear was lots of funny breathing down the phone, like something was wrong.
‘She said, “I’ve checked on the internet and I think we may have won £2million but it just doesn’t look right”. I told her to go and double check again as things like this don’t happen to people like us. She sent me a text with the amount on it from the internet but she had read it wrong. It wasn’t £2million – it was £21million.’
As the nation celebrated the royal wedding last Saturday, the couple were told they had won the jackpot prize of £21,044,592. Now a special honeymoon awaits for the pair, who have been together for 20 years but only married in March. Otherwise, Mrs Stickley only wants to buy ‘new pots and pans’, and she may even hang the handbag where the ticket had been languishing on the wall as a souvenir of their win.
Mr Stickley considered swapping his VW Transporter Kombi for a £110,000 Audi R8, but decided he ‘couldn’t consider writing a cheque for a car of that price’. And the couple’s first priority is ensuring David’s 86-year- old mother and Donna’s 77-year-old father are looked after.
Mrs Stickley said: ‘Some things have had to be put to one side while we take time to look after our mum and dad.
‘We’ve always said to them whatever care they need we will find the money, so this makes the situation even more manageable.’
The Stickleys say they will continue to play the lottery.
‘ We’re going to carry on as normal,’ Mr Stickley said. ‘I just want us to still go to the same pub, with the same people and not be treated any differently.’