Gran’s pledge after £10k-a-month win

CARER Karen Shipley plans to keep working – despite scooping £10,000 a month on the Lottery.

But she has vowed to stop when she reaches her official retirement age of 66 next year.

Karen matched five numbers on the National Lottery’s Sunday Set For Life draw, meaning she will get £10,000 a month for a year.

She could not help swearing on realising how big her prize was – despite looking after a client at the time. Karen said: “I wasn’t really paying attention, so when my phone pinged telling me there was a prize I thought it was £10 until I looked closer and saw it was £10,000 a month for a year.

“My reaction was some choice language and then I logged out and back in to scan again, just to be sure. I still didn’t sleep a wink, checking and re-checking.”

Karen, of Southampton, who has two grandchildren, is due to start a new job as a community carer next week and says she’ll be honouring the contract despite her windfall. She said: “I’m going to carry on working until I reach the official retirement age next year and then I am going to take things easy.”

But she won’t be going on a mad spending spree and has so far bought only toys – including a climbing frame and a trampoline – for her grandchildren.

She said: “For a very long time I have worked hard to make ends meet – and often they didn’t.

Grind

“So I’m not going crazy. This win means at long last the daily grind and pressure is switched off and I can start to look forward to retirement with confidence and ease.

“I don’t have plans to move, buy a new car or live the high life, although I’d like to plan a trip to Jamaica when it’s safe to travel.

“My father’s family is from there and I would dearly love to visit the island of his birth and my grandmother’s grave to pay my respects.”