A LOTTO winner who scooped a massive EuroMillions prize has revealed that she celebrated with a £700 shopping spree but forgot to buy for a key person.
Trish Emson, from Rotherham, Yorkshire, couldn’t believe it when she raked in £1.7 million in 2003.
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She splashed the cash to treat friends and family, but realised that she forgot to pick up a present for herself.
Trish, now 53, told Yorkshire Live: “I went to Meadowhall shopping and spent £700, I thought I’d spent the world, I bought everyone else a present except me.”
Asked how the lotto jackpot changed her life, she added: “To be honest it didn’t really change me a lot, everybody couldn’t believe how much it’d not changed me.
“I went to work, I still went to work and everything.
“I phoned my mum and dad and they didn’t believe me.”
While it may have been tempting to snap up mansions or luxury cars like previous winners, her only big purchases were a pair of caravans so her family could all go on holiday and a couple of foreign trips, including a cruise with her mum.
Trish still works as a dinner lady in her hometown and has joined a group of 13 other winners to invest in the restoration of a lido in nearby Ilkley to give back to the local community.
In 2021, she told The Mirror: “Being rich doesn’t make you posh or a better person. I don’t like showing off and bragging about money and I can’t be posh anyway.
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“To look at me you wouldn’t think I was a millionaire, but if I have to dress up I feel fake, I prefer my jeans.
“We’ve been careful. I don’t buy flash cars, I’ve got a Kia and I still shop in Primark.
“The best thing we bought was the caravan in Cleethorpes. It’s a big un. Actually, I’ve got two now.”
However, the win wasn’t the only big news for her 20 years ago, as she fell pregnant just a fortnight later after she and her partner, Graham Norton, had been trying for more than five years.
Trish added: “I really believe it was thanks to winning the lottery that I did get pregnant.
“I had my mind on something else and it just happened.”
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