Man finds £76m lottery ticket after family nags him to check his ticket
Written by News on 22/12/2018
A man has won a £76m lottery jackpot after giving in to his nagging family, who spent six weeks urging him to check.
Andrew Clark, 51, from Boston, Lincolnshire, had a pile of unchecked tickets in his van.
The builder’s partner, Trisha Fairhurst, and her niece, Louise, pressed him to check through them after he spent weeks working through a spate of particularly cold and wet winter days.
“Trisha kept telling me to check the tickets, and her niece Louise, who I was building an extension for, was also in on it once she’d heard about the unclaimed prize in the news,” he said.
“It was something of a standing joke that I had all these tickets while there was a local prize outstanding, so for weeks they were on at me to check.”
Reflecting on finding the winning ticket, he said: “It almost feels like some magical Christmas story, the man who nearly lost £76m!
“For all our family, I’m very pleased that Trisha and Louise nagged me to check those tickets!”
Self-employed Mr Clark won a £76,369,806.80 EuroMillions jackpot. It is the 12th biggest win ever in the UK.
Recalling the evening he found the ticket, Mr Clark said: “It was about 8pm and we were watching telly when Louise reminded me again about the tickets.
“I finally gave in, got the bundle out of the van and started to work my way through them, methodically from the oldest to the most recent, starting with Lotto, before moving onto my EuroMillions tickets.
“You might say I was slightly winding up Louise but I certainly didn’t expect the wind up to end with me saying ‘I’ve done it, I’ve won £76M’ – I won’t say what she said in response!”
Mr Clark called up his partner, who he has been with for four years, to tell her they’d won.
Ms Fairhurst said: “I’d just got back from work and was settling in for a quiet evening when Andrew called and said, ‘You know that £76M, well I’ve just won it.’
“Obviously I didn’t believe a word of it, even when my niece came on the phone to say it was true I still couldn’t take it in.
“It started to seem real when he called back and said, ‘Honestly, it’s real, so start looking for a mansion’ – bang went my quiet evening, I didn’t sleep a wink!”
The winning ticket was bought from Eastwood Road Post Office in Boston and the winning EuroMillions numbers from the draw on 2 November were 5, 15, 17, 37, 44, and Lucky Stars 7 and 11.
(c) Sky News 2018: Man finds £76m lottery ticket after family nags him to check his ticket
