A GRANDMA who won a share of the £1million People’s Postcode Lottery jackpot said the secret to her good luck was lurking in the garden.
Joan Buckingham, 74, bagged the windfall when her Birmingham address turned out to be the winning street this month.
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The great gran-of-five scooped £111,111 as part of the whopping amount which she shared with eight of her neighbours.
But the down-to-earth pensioner said she couldn’t care less about the money – she just wants to add to her collection of good luck charms.
Joan collects garden gnomes and has been obsessed with them ever since she bought her first one in a garden centre over a decade ago.
Wanting to add more pointy-hatted pals to her already 40-strong army, Joan believes having so many was the key to her winning the lotto.
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She said: “My grandson bought me the biggest gnome – which stands at three-foot-tall.
“And when the kids come over, they each have their own pot and we all paint gnomes together.”
But Joan’s passion for the mythical humanoids isn’t for everyone in her family.
Daughter Sam Buckingham, 51, joked: “I love her to bits, but she can drive me insane – everywhere we go it’s ‘oh have you seen that gnome over there?’
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“‘Have we got enough room in the car? Can we get two?'”
Joan, who’s lived in her house for 40 years, will also treat her family and is planning a holiday to the US with her two sisters and brother-in-law.
Each Shenley Lane resident has bagged exactly £111,111 from the Saturday October 21 draw.
Winners include supermarket worker Paula Kerman, 57, and hubby Michael, who say the win has “changed our lives overnight”.
They’re off to Benidorm for two weeks of autumn sun and plan on cracking open champagne on the way out to the Costa Del Sol.
The Kermans are also planning a memorial garden bench for the back garden to remember their late parents and friends.
It comes after an OAP secured £333,000 on the Postcode Lottery but was told she would only take home a third because of an age-old pact.
And one group of neighbours on a Manchester estate won £3.2million between them this summer.
