A LOTTERY winner who split a £22million jackpot win with his mate is now back at work and says his pal is “probably skint”.
Mark Gardiner and Paul Maddison shared the £22,590,829 prize money equally in 1995.
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Now 61, Mark still has a hands-on role at his window company Croft Glass although it seems he is no longer in touch with Paul.
Mark says fellow winner Paul – who he would not confirm if he still speaks to – now lives in Scotland and has become a Jehovah’s Witness.
He told The Sun: “Everyone says he’s bought a castle, he hasn’t bought a castle, he’s got a house with a turret on the end. Everyone said he bought a fish farm – he hasn’t, he’s got a river you can fish in.
“He’s probably skint.”
Mark spent some of his winning on a holiday home in Barbados, pumped £2m into his business and also bought his local football club in Hastings, East Sussex.
He says he now owns one of the most respected businesses in Sussex.
Mark said as well as the day-to-day of running the company he also does the “measuring up, surveying and putting in orders”.
Speaking outside his Grade II listed mansion in St Leonards on Sea, Mark said: “I had Croft Glass before the win so I invested £2million into it. I was 32 years old [when I won] and I thought I was too young to retire.
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“So I decided to invest money into the company. I wanted to see if I had the ability, the skill and the knowledge to take it further.
“It was a business but it was also a challenge. And we are what we are today.
“It was almost like a test to myself. It was like a test and I have passed.”
He added: “My secret to staying normal and sane, to keeping my feet on the ground, is because I kept working.”
Mark, who still plays the same lottery numbers 27 years on from his big win, admitted he has occasionally “skived off” over the years and doesn’t think twice about taking the day off for a round of golf.
He said: “If my mates say they want to play a round or they want to go to Brighton for the day, I will take the day off.
“I don’t have a boss over my shoulder saying I have to sign a holiday form. And I don’t worry that if I take the day off I won’t be able to pay my staff’s wages.
“Don’t get me wrong, if I won the lottery now at 61… oh my god I would have done so many different things.
“I would have stopped work. I’m now at the age where you think, ‘I have worked for 45 years so now I’m due a bit of time off’. But because I won it when I was 32, I was still a puppy.”
Mark says he still plays the lotto in the hopes of winning a “top-up” which he enjoys winding up his staff about.
Outside Mark’s house sits a National Lottery sign gifted to him by the newsagent he bought his winning ticket from.
“After the win I went to the newsagent for a paper and some milk.
“The guy said ‘I have got something for you’. I thought it was a bottle of wine but no, it was his spare lottery sign. I have no idea why he thought I’d want it”, said Mark.
After declining to have his picture taken with it, Mark said: “My son uses it as a cricket stump.”
The glazier said he has met many winners at Camelot parties who have gone broke, got divorced or gone back to work out of boredom.
When asked if he was one of the wiser winners, Mark said: “I don’t believe anybody has got any right to say that.
“Maybe I’m wrong or they are wrong. If we were all the same it would be a boring world.
“I have done what I have done. Winning the lottery – it’s your ticket to doing whatever you want. It gives you permission to do what you want to do.”
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