I let her lie in... then I told her
He found he’d won by email at dawn but didn’t alert his wife (for 20 mins anyway) ... heart-stopping story of the UK’s biggest Lotto win
IT’S the kind of life-changing event that could take months or even years to sink in.
So you could forgive Joe Thwaite for taking just a beat before breaking the news to wife Jess that they had just won more than £184million on the lottery.
The couple scooped the rollover EuroMillions jackpot last week – making them Britain’s biggest ever winners. Mr Thwaite had got up at 5.15am as usual. He fed the dogs and did some jobs around the house, before returning to bed with his phone where he checked the weather and his emails.
After going public about the win yesterday, he described the moment he then discovered their lucky dip ticket had scooped the extraordinary sum. He said: ‘I had an email saying that I had won a prize... I got the app and logged in, and then I looked at the amount. And I put the phone down. And I picked the phone up again. And I looked at the amount again.’
Mr Thwaite then looked over at his wife, agonising over whether to wake her. He added: ‘Jess hadn’t had a great night’s sleep, so I thought, I’ll give her the 20 minutes till her alarm goes off.’
The couple, who have two daughters of primary school age, already have a picturesque house on four acres of land in Gloucestershire, with space for their ponies and a menagerie of other pets.
But the middle-class family could now trade in their Grade II-listed three-bedroom cottage for something altogether grander.
Rather than wake his wife up, Mr Thwaite, 49, decided to start looking for their dream home online.
He said: ‘We’ve been trying to move house for quite a while. You go on Rightmove, and you set your limits and what you can afford.
‘In the past, everything we’ve wanted was far beyond what we could afford. I thought, I can actually look at anything, with no budget limit. I still didn’t really believe it, but it was fun.’ Then his wife’s alarm went off. Taking up the story, Mrs Thwaite, 44, explained: ‘It was normal husband-and-wife grumpy-morning, with me saying, “Just let me turn the alarm off”, but he was like, “I’ve got a secret to tell you”.’
She told him that he was ‘being silly’ and suggested he hadn’t got his glasses on – until she checked the eye-watering sum for herself.
She said: ‘We just thought, this is a fun game to play. It’s obviously wrong, there’s something wrong with the app, but hey let’s go with it, let’s enjoy this moment of thinking we’ve won the lottery, because it’s not real.
‘We said, “We’ll call them at 8 o’clock, and check”. And then I was like, “Right, I’ll go and make coffee and get on with the day”.
‘I thought it would be on the news: “App tells everybody they’ve won the EuroMillions”, that’s what I thought would be on.’
At 8am they called Camelot. Mr Thwaite said: ‘You couldn’t make it up – I had a really terrible phone signal. The lady at the other end speaking to me, I had to keep repeating all the information, going through the security checks.
‘And I’ve got the surname from hell – I spelt it out about 15 different times in different ways.’
Mrs Thwaite said: ‘We ended up in one of our kids’ rooms, next to the window, trying to get a signal. The lady was so amazing. Joe was like, “I think we’ve won the lottery”, and she was like, “Oh, OK” – telling us all the stuff – “How much do you think you’ve won”, and he was like, “No, I think we’ve won!”
‘So then she put us on hold, and she came back on and she went, “You definitely have won!” and she was really sweet and excited. I didn’t really think it was real.’
But it was real, they had scooped £184,262,899 – instantly making them richer than megastars such as pop star Adele.
The couple, who married 11 years ago, said their priority was to treat their extended family in order to look after them ‘for generations to come’.
And as well as a possible new home, they also plan to upgrade their battered Hyundai hatchback – albeit only to a roomy Skoda estate.
Mr Thwaite, a communications sales engineer, and Mrs Thwaite, who runs a hairdressing salon with her sister, met at a communications business in Upton-upon-Severn, Worcestershire, where they were living at the time.
In November, they sold their Gloucestershire home for £525,000 and moved to their current £650,000 house on a in a nearby village. With three dogs, five chickens, two geckos and three ponies, two of which are loaned, they had wanted to give their children a country-style upbringing.
As well as an extensive leafy garden, there is a stable and other outbuildings on the property.
Discussing why they decided to
go public with their lottery win, Mrs Thwaite said: ‘I don’t want to lie to family and friends, I want to enjoy it with them.
‘Maybe, naively, I thought we could tell a few people and it would be fine. But the list gets longer and soon you realise it would be a burden asking them to keep it quiet. Telling people makes it easier.
‘Our main aim is to be able to share with our family and be open with them.
‘We couldn’t ask people to be complicit and not say anything.’
She said the pair wanted to get back to a normal life as quickly as possible, but admitted it would be a ‘different version’ of their normal life going forward.
Her husband, who still seemed quite dazed as the couple were introduced to the media yesterday by television presenter Dermot O’Leary, added: ‘We don’t know where we are heading on this journey, but we can’t lie about it.’
Despite looking up new homes, the family may still decide to stay put. Asked if their new house was still their ‘forever home’ now they had landed the jackpot, Mrs Thwaite said: ‘We don’t know. I don’t know.
‘It was our dream. It was our absolute dream to have the ponies at home. But I think we’ve got some time [now] and a bit more room to dream.’
Mr Thwaite added: ‘We could do the house up how we wanted it and make the couple of changes that we want, to put our stamp on the place.’ He said they were looking forward to going on a holiday ‘that isn’t in a tent’, with Hawaii top of their youngest girl’s destination chart. Their oldest fancies a trip to Texas to do a ranch drive on a pony.
Friend Sue Davis, who has known Mr and Mrs Thwaite for over a decade, said the lottery win was ‘fantastic news’ and described the pair as ‘a really down to earth couple’.
She said: ‘They both used to work for my husband’s telecoms firm – that’s how they met. Jess worked in sales and Joe was an engineer. This is wonderful news to hear.’
And neighbours said they were ‘delighted’ about the family’s win.
One said: ‘They only moved in a few months ago but I know Joe because their chicken decided to live in our garden and the children keep their ponies in the field behind. I’m delighted for them, I can’t think of anything better, especially with the young children.’