A retired
cleaner who picked up Saturday's UK National Lottery £7.5 million jackpot has
vowed her new-found wealth will not change her, and proved her point by having
fish fingers for her evening meal.
Seventy-year-old
Doreen Hay, who lives at Thornaby, Teesside, is splitting her lotto winnings
with her son, John, who works as a cable engineer. Both of them have agreed they will each give £500,000 to Hay's ex-husband; so their combined gift will
make him a millionaire as well. "He deserves it," Hay said. "We
got on better once we divorced because I stopped nagging him."
Although
she has never been abroad, and does not even own a passport, the generous OAP
is not dreaming of sun-drenched beaches or exotic locations. "The real
thrill is to give the money away," she enthused. "What am I going to
do with it all?"
Hay already
knows what she will do with £1.5 million of her winnings though. She intends to
distribute the cash between her family and some of her favorite charities.
A regular
lotto player, Hay usually spends £4 a week on a couple of Lucky Dips, but
dipped into her purse and bought an extra ticket at the weekend and was rewarded with
a £7,505,717 win.
When she
checked her numbers on Sunday morning, she was so surprised by the size of her
win that she had to ring up her son and ask him to confirm she had the winning
ticket. "You'll have to come over," she told him. "I think we've
won the lottery."
