‘We’ve won £21m on the lottery ... but we’ll still work’

A COUPLE who went for a week without checking their £21 million jackpot-winning lottery ticket have said they are “shellshocked”.

Donna Stickley, 48, and her husband David, 58, said they might spend some of their £21,044,592 winnings on a beach honeymoon and making sure that elderly relatives are looked after, but they plan to go back to work.

Using their regular numbers – 1, 15, 21, 30, 35 and 44 – the couple, from Slough, Berkshire, were the sole ticketholders to scoop the jackpot in the May 12 Lotto rollover draw. Mrs Stickley had left the ticket in the bottom of her handbag.

She went to the shop on May 19 to buy the next week’s ticket and was told she needed to contact Lottery operator Camelot as she had won more than £500.

She checked online and thought it was a £2m windfall and called her husband, who was at work.

Speaking at a press conference in Windsor, Mrs Stickley said: “I thought it was £2m but there were too many decimal points. It did not quite compute.

“I rang David and he said it was £21m.” She said: “I was shellshocked but not as shellshocked as I am now.” Mr Stickley jokingly recalled “there were a few other words”, before adding: “This sort of thing does not happen to us.”

The couple, who have no children, have been together for 20 years but only tied the knot in March.

He said: “Some of it [the money] will probably go on a nice honeymoon. It will be a bit more spectacular than it would have been.”

Mr Stickley is an aircraft re-fueller at Babcock International, and Mrs Stickley works as an office manager at an engineering firm.

He said he “absolutely” intends to go back to work, adding: “We want normality. We are normal people. We do not want dramatic change.

“We are just going to try and comprehend what has happened.”

Friends, family and workmates are only now finding out about the couple’s win.

Now their secret is out, Mr Stickley said he is looking forward to getting a good night’s sleep, while his wife said it had been a difficult secret to keep.

The couple said they need to try to regroup and take in what their good fortune will mean to them.

Describing their life-changing win as a “good result” and with no fixed plans about their next move, Mr Stickley said “people will benefit from it”.