A Postcode Lottery winner plans to take his wife on their dream honeymoon after scooping more than £500,000. But the first thing he'll do is splash out on a pack of Lurpak...
Cyril Hellewell and his wife Maria, who live in the Lincolnshire seaside town of Mablethorpe, got the surprise of their lives after discovering they'd won the Postcode Lottery. A huge jackpot of £7.9m was distributed between 591 people living in the LN12 1 area, with one street in particular receiving the lion's share of the prize.
As reported by Lincolnshire Live, 13 lucky winners living on Trenchard Road all got their hands on a chunk of £3.95m. A total of £263,333 each was given to 11 neighbours on the street while two others - including Cyril and Maria - scooped a whopping £526,666, thanks to playing with two tickets.
Cyril, 56, was delighted as they will now get to go on their dream honeymoon after tying the knot last year. He said: "It’s a miracle.
"I was just flabbergasted, absolutely flabbergasted, I just couldn’t believe the amount; It really is once in a lifetime stuff."
He said they had always wanted to go to Egypt and now their dream can become a reality. "So, we can now do that and have the honeymoon we never went on," he said.
"First thing I’m going to get is some Lurpak for the fridge, it’s that expensive these days. I can buy at least 10 packs now."
The news was a huge and welcome shock to people living in the Mablethorpe community. The average house price there is just £183,606 as opposed to an average of £227,373 across the rest of Lincolnshire.
Beverley White, an 82-year-old great-grandmother of 14, and her husband Michael White, 81, won £263,333 each. Beverley, who worked as a nurse for over 30 years, said: "Never in my life did I think that this would happen to us.
"I’d love to see my bank managers face when that goes in my bank account. I don’t think I’ve ever made that much money in my whole life, and I’ve worked from when I was 15 until I retired.
"We can really help out our kids, grandkids and great grandkids. It’ll be a Christmas to remember."
Another neighbour Samantha Douglas won £263,333 and received the news while in-between working back-to-back night shifts at a local care home. The 54-year-old said: "It’s fantastic, I’m over the moon.
"We’ve not even gave it a thought about what we could buy because we’ve never thought about winning this sort of money – never in our wildest dreams really. There will be something for our children and my first buy will be to replace our 20-year-old car with a new one."
And husband and wife, Gordon and Lynda Ames said they could "jump over the moon" after winning £263,333 each. Lynda said: "We’re just fantastically happy with this at our age, it’s lovely to have this win behind you.
"It gives us an opportunity to share it with our local charities too, such as the RNLI, Cancer and Air Ambulance charities and Dogs Home. We like to help people out and charities are important in our small community in Mablethorpe."
