A BUS driver who scooped an eye-watering £10m lottery jackpot has revealed the reason he still has his licence while living in luxury.
Peter Lavery was working as a bus driver in Belfast when he won the life-changing lottery prize in May 1996.
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Peter’s life took a major turn when he bought a lottery ticket and went from earning £200 a week driving buses to being one of the richest people in Northern Ireland.
But the lucky winner kept his bus licence while having a lavish lifestyle.
He said he needed to get back to work out of boredom.
Mr Lavery said: “What would I do in the mornings when I get up with nothing to do?”
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Despite becoming a millionaire, he stuck the winning ticket in his pocket and did a five-hour shift on the buses the following day.
But the huge win pushed him to continually celebrate through excessive drinking, partying and eating.
His pals revealed how Peter was “a party animal and loved socialising” following the days of his win.
The former bus driver was then told by doctors he would drink himself into an early grave if he continued with his lifestyle.
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Peter said: “Doctors’ orders, I had to stop drinking or I wouldn’t be here today. I would be up in smoke in Roselawn.”
Just before his 40th birthday he realised he had to stop drinking or he wouldn’t be around much longer.
Peter decided to embarked in several business adventures and decided to invest in commercial property and support community groups.
He even opened an operational whiskey distillery – the first in Belfast for nearly 90 years.
And its location of a pumphouse where the Titanic and its sister ships were completed adds to the difficulty of the challenge.
Another of his projects is restoring a sightseeing vessel so it can be used to provide tours of Belfast’s shipyards and docks.
Peter now features in new BBC documentary Our Lives: The Lottery Millionaire and the Spirit of Belfast on Friday night.
It follows him as he launches several businesses and attempts to bring whiskey distilling back to Belfast 27 years after his lotto win.
But the documentary also explores how friends, along with his doctor, feared for his life after he landed the prize.
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It comes as a woman who scooped a whopping £2.1million in a lottery jackpot has revealed she cries every time she thinks about how she won.
Libby Elliot, from Aberdeenshire, revealed she used a couple of pounds given by her dad to buy a Lucky Dip a few years ago.
