Champagne? I had a cuppa in dark room after £4.3m lottery win!
AFTER becoming a multimillionaire overnight, you could be forgiven for immediately popping open the bubbly or splurging on luxury holidays.
But when a Scottish grandfather discovered he had won £4.3million in the Lottery, he was so shocked all he could do was lock himself in a dark room with a cup of tea.
James Couper, a ferry worker from Greenock, Renfrewshire, was eating a sandwich at work on Sunday when he realised he had matched all six of the previous night’s Lotto numbers.
And yesterday, the shaken father-oftwo picked up his cheque for £4,369,877, saying: ‘It’s mind-boggling – I’m used to seeing zero in my account.’
Mr Couper, 46, told how a colleague had read him the winning numbers during his lunch break. He said: ‘I thought he’d got hold of my ticket somehow and knew my numbers,
‘I’m used to seeing zero in my account’
meaning it was all a joke, so I grabbed the newspaper to check it.
‘When I saw them there in black and white I just couldn’t get my head around it.
‘I was so stunned that I just went home and sat in a dark room with a cup of tea. I just sat there shaking. I think more tea ended up on the floor than in my mouth.’
Mr Couper hid the winning ticket in his son’s toy box and guarded it ‘like a newborn’.
‘I protected that ticket with my life. I was not going to get this far just to lose my winning ticket,’ he said.
He added that he was so shocked he hadn’t left home all week, but that he will soon celebrate by buying a round of lager in his local pub as he’s ‘not a champagne man’.
Mr Couper’s first purchase with his winnings will be a new home so he can move out of his three-bedroom council house in Greenock, but he won’t be leaving Inverclyde as he wants to stay near his friends.
He also plans to treat his two children, Rachel, 20, and Daniel, 16, to a holiday at Disney World in Florida.
Mr Couper, who has separated from his wife Kathleen, said he would spend the money on ‘quality time with my family’ and his two grandchildren Aaron, four, and Anna, one.
He plans to trade in his bus pass for a new car, but rather than splashing out on a Mercedes he has his eye on a silver Ford Focus.
Asked if he was expecting marriage proposals thanks to his new-found fortune, he said: ‘I’ve been single for two years, so you never know.’
Mr Couper, who has worked for CalMac ferries at Wemyss Bay for 12 years, said he will take time off work to let the news sink in.
‘I’ll take some time out to think things through but I’m not sure I’ll be leaving for good,’ he added.
Mr Couper celebrated the win at Mar Hall hotel near Glasgow with his daughter, who said she now calls her father Del Boy.
He bought his lucky dip ticket at the Tesco Extra on Dalrymple Street, Greenock. His £4,369,877 win was half the jackpot as another player also matched six numbers.
He said: ‘I used to play the lottery regularly using set numbers but then somewhere along the line I stopped and just started playing now and again with lucky dips.
‘Boy, am I glad I decided to pick up that lucky dip now.’