Gran wins big on National Lottery after 'good omen' spiders crawl up her arm
Some creepy-crawlies inspired a grandmother to enter the National Lottery and scoop a massive win which will see her bank £10,000 every month for the next 30 years.
Doris Stanbridge scooped the top prize on Thursday, August 3, a week after her 70th birthday after she was prompted to take a chance of the Lucky Dip Set For Life ticket after encountering two money spiders. Due to her incredible win, Doris, from Dorking, Surrey, is now able to retire alongside her 66 year old husband Keith.
She said: "I wasn’t planning on retiring for a few more years but I am going to stop working in the next few months. Keith has already retired, only two weeks before all of this, so we can retire together now and enjoy it. It still seems a bit strange when I think about the win and that I will get that money every month for thirty years."
A chance encounter with two money spiders led to a life-changing National Lottery win for Doris Stanbridge (James Robinson)Doris added: "It gives me a reason to be around until I am 100!" The grandmother works part time at a supermarket and plays the Lotto every Saturday, but she decided to try her luck on a different game that Thursday after finding two money spiders.
She explained: “I downloaded the National Lottery app a few years ago. I don’t play on it regularly, I just put an amount in and top it up. If I get an email to say it’s a rollover or a big jackpot I play. It’s always random, different games and a Lucky Dip - I never use the same numbers. My daughters were at our house, which they are most Thursdays. I was out in the kitchen when I felt something tickle my arm. I looked down and it was a money spider crawling off of my hand."
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The 70 year old continued: "I flicked it off, went into the conservatory and there was another one! I said to my girls, ‘I’ve seen two money spiders now, I should do the lottery’. And that’s exactly what I did. I went on to the app and played a Lucky Dip for the draw that night.”
It was on the following Sunday that Doris realised she had won after checking through her emails. She said: "I didn’t think about the ticket. We had my 70th birthday party the night before so we had been busy. I was going through my emails, deleting bits and pieces when I saw one from The National Lottery saying, ‘Congratulations, you’re a winner!’. I logged on to the app, thinking I had won £10 and then saw the words ‘Congratulations, you’ve won 10k a month for 30 years’. I looked at it and said to Keith, ‘have I read that right? Does that say what I think it says? No, it can't be!'"
Doris rushed to her son in law, who lives next door, and asked him if it said what she thought it said. She said: "He logged on to his National Lottery app and said ‘yes those are the numbers, there was one winner and it’s you!’" The family continued their celebrations from the night before and Doris opened a bottle of Champagne that she had received as a gift for her birthday.
The Surrey grandmother was unable to sleep that night, as she had left it too late on a Sunday night to call The National Lottery and have the win officially confirmed. Doris said: “I called The National Lottery as soon as I got up that Monday morning. "I then went into work and told one of my colleagues. She couldn’t believe it! By the time I went back in on Wednesday, everybody knew about the win. They are all very happy for me.”
Doris wasted no time in spending her first £10,000, as the couple have already bought a new bed and she’s upgraded her airfryer to the latest model. She said: "Getting that first payment was bizarre, it felt very strange to see that amount of money in my account. It arrived just before we went on our annual family trip to Cornwall so I gave my daughters a chunk each to celebrate and have a bit of fun with. We were able to go out for meals and do things we’d normally think twice about doing.”
Doris and Keith Stanbridge from Dorking celebrate an incredible win from The National Lottery (James Robinson)Despite having a new influx of cash, the couple have no plans to leave their home of 50 years. Doris explained: "My daughter lives next door, which is lovely. We live in the middle of town, walking distance to everywhere. It isn’t a huge home and it suits us perfectly - we have always liked living here. We have just had the kitchen and conservatory done but now the rest of the house is looking tired so we need to tidy it up. I also want to have a new bathroom upstairs.”
Doris has three daughters and a grandson, and so this win means she can help out her loved ones and also have some fun. She said: "The win means we won’t have to worry about our finances and we can help out my girls. We want to have a big holiday next year. We go to Cornwall every year but I want us all to go abroad next time - it will be my grandson’s first trip on an aeroplane. Croatia is one of our favourite places. I have been looking at a villa in the country with a pool, and sunshine all the time!"
She continued: "Keith wants to see Shania Twain, so that's on the bucket list. My girls and I like going to shows - we have seen Pink and Queen and loved it. We couldn’t afford to do that often but now we can, and we can stay in a hotel and make it a girly outing. This is the sort of thing we want to do a lot more of, which we can now thanks to the win.”
Doris won The National Lottery’s Set For Life draw on Thursday, August 3 after matching all the winning numbers that night, which were 2, 11, 17, 30, 38 and Life Ball 3.
‘Set For Life’ is an draw-based annuity game from The National Lottery that offers a top prize of £10K a month for 30 years when the five main numbers and the Life Ball are all matched. Players can also win £10K a month for a whole year by matching the five main numbers.
Couple found out they'd won the lottery after popping to supermarket
Each week around £30m is generated by National Lottery players for good causes across the UK, such as hundreds of small projects in local communities. To date, over £47bn has been raised for National Lottery Good Causes, with more than 670,000 individual grants awarded.
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