Lotto winner Donna Hendry has revealed her late husband would have been so proud of their son who aced his University exams.
Donna, 54, from West Lothian won a £4,078,509 jackpot on Lotto in January 2015 along with husband David but five years later, David tragically passed away after a short battle with cancer. The couple had been together for most of their lives, 30 years, and married for 23.
The pair both gave up their jobs straight away and bought a bigger house in the same area. They travelled widely including to Memphis, because David was such an Elvis fan, and it was after returning from a trip to California to celebrate Donna’s 50th in February 2020 that David was diagnosed.
“He died four months later and our son was only 18 at the time. He’s just graduated with a first, and I know his father would have been so proud.”
After their win modest David celebrated his jackpot with a McDonald's meal and the pair bought a £300,000 house up a five-bed property less than half a mile away from their home at the time. David quit work as a sales engineer just weeks after the win and described himself as an “international traveller” and says he is “retired and enjoying life”.
At the time of their win, David said they planned to keep their feet on the ground and wouldn’t splash the cash too much, maybe indulging in “a couple of cars”. He said: “We need to keep a level head for our son. We need to think about his exams.”
Not everyone does as you might expect when they win the lottery.
Big-hearted Ray Wragg, 86, from Sheffield won a £7,649,520 Lotto jackpot in January 2000, with late wife, Barbara but has amazingly given the majority of his winnings to good causes. Ray retired as soon as his winning numbers came up, and the couple immediately started thinking about who they could help.
He said: “We gave £5.5 million away to family and friends, hospitals and good causes.”
The couple once paid £12,000 for war veterans to revisit the WWII battlefield of Monte Cassino and have also taken 250 local school children on an all expenses paid trip to see Disney on Ice, among many other things. Ray very sadly lost his beloved wife, Barbara in 2018 but has since found happiness again after meeting Anne on a cruise and they’ve just jointly purchased a three-bedroom bungalow together.
Before he lost his late wife the pair, from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, lived in a £10,000 council house and lived a modest life never living beyond their means or even leaving the country for holidays. They played the lottery every week, choosing five lines and picked numbers at random from registration plates.