Record lottery winner 'will share with her ex
Wednesday, August 15, 2007 posted 11:26 AM EDT
How does it feel to win more than £35 million? Don’t ask Angela Kelly, the postal worker who scooped Britain's biggest ever lottery jackpot but said today that her record-winning fortune has not yet hit home.
The 40-year-old mother of one from East Kilbride only discovered on Monday, three days after Friday’s draw, that she had won the entire Euromillions jackpot of £35,425,411.
Ms Kelly realised that she had won while she was checking a newspaper at the Royal Mail sorting office in Glasgow where she works. “I couldn’t believe it when all the numbers were coming in a row. I had to hand it over to a colleague to check it.
“I just pushed my chair back and put my head between my knees because I was so flabbergasted.”
Ms Kelly’s win makes her wealthier than Princes William and Harry, who have £34m, the footballer Wayne Rooney, on £30m, and glamour model Jordan, who has also amassed £30m.
She plans to leave the sorting office, where she was a clerical worker, next week. She will now earn in interest the equivalent of her former salary of £21,000 every week.
“It’s so weird,” she said. “Twenty-one grand isn’t a bad wage. It is enough to live on and I’ve always got by. To know that I’ve got that [amount] every week - I just can’t get my head around it.”
Ms Kelly said she plans to use the money to make life more comfortable for her and son John, who is 14. The pair have lived together in a flat since Ms Kelly split from her husband Gerry Cunningham eight years ago.
She said she will buy a bigger house, “near the country” but in the same area, so that her son can continue to attend the same school. She will also buy a new Seat Ibiza to replace the one she owned until it was wrecked in a car crash in May,
“I always wanted a nice car and a nice home, that was the two things. And an exotic holiday,” she said.
She also said she intends to lavish presents on her two sisters, and ended speculation about whether she will face a claim on her cash from her estranged husband, from whom she is not yet divorced.
“I think he will leave that up to me,” she said. “I need to sit down with Gerry and find out what he is looking for – he is not an unreasonable man.”
When asked if that meant she would give him a share of her winnings, she said: “Definitely.”
Ms Kelly admitted she is still in shock. “When it happens your mind goes blank and you can’t take it in,” she said.
She said she is “quite a shy person”, and is uncertain about how she will cope with the celebrity status that her win is bound to bring.
But she added: “I am sure my sisters will make sure I am grounded and don’t go mental.”
She also claimed the fortune was unlikely to affect her son. “If you met my son you would know he’s not got that personality. He’s a down to earth wee boy – and he does what he is told.”
The winning numbers were: 23, 40, 42, 43, 49, plus 2 and 6. The amount dwarfs the previous biggest British EuroMillions win by Marion Richardson, from Gateshead, northeast England, who netted £16.8 million in April 2004.
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