Modest couple pick up £148m

Music shop owner Adrian Bayford said yesterday that, when the winning Euromillions numbers scrolled along the screen, he joked to his wife that he had not bought any tickets.

And when he tried to tell his healthcare assistant wife, Gillian, that they had actually scooped the jackpot, she told him to be quiet as she was trying to get their children to sleep.

Mr Bayford, 41, said: “I had been watching the film The Bank Job on TV while Gillian was out with friends.

“When she got back, we decided to turn over and catch up on the news.

“Scrolling along the bottom of the screen was the news that one person had won EuroMillions but Gillian confessed that she hadn’t had time to get a ticket.

“As a joke, I also said neither had I, when in fact I had five lines upstairs waiting to be checked.

“By now both of our children had woken up so while Gillian was trying to settle them back to sleep, I went to check the numbers on my phone.

“Gradually, the numbers seemed to match up with those on my ticket and I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

“I rushed back and turned on the main light, at which point Gillian went ballistic. The kids really were awake by now.

“I was trying to tell her that we had won the lottery and she was telling me to keep the noise down.”

The lucky couple, from Haverhill, Suffolk, who have a daughter aged six and a four-year-old son, scooped the 14-rollover jackpot in Friday’s draw with the winning numbers 50, 21, 17, 48 and 11, and the Lucky Star numbers 09 and 10.

The prize is just less than the £161m won by Colin and Chris Weir, from Largs in North Ayrshire, in July last year.

Mr Bayford, who co-owns a music shop in Haverhill, and his wife, a children’s ward assistant at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, called family members to share the news, having given up on getting the children back to bed.

Mrs Bayford, 40, said: “Everyone was very surprised to hear from us so late at night and thought we were joking at first.

“It took us a while to make them believe us.

“The children sensed our ecstatic mood and took full advantage of it.

“They finally settled back to sleep in our bed at around 2am.

“We decided we weren’t going to be needing our bed that night anyway.”

The couple, who have been married for eight years, spent the rest of the night deciding how to spend the money.

They are deciding what to do next, although Mrs Bayford said she would be leaving her job, where she has worked shifts for the past three years.

Mrs Bayford said: “Neither of us can quite comprehend just how much £148m is.

“We have always worked and saved up for holidays, or things that we need.

“We have lived within our means and been comfortable but we have been like ships in the night to earn the income we needed.

“It will be fantastic to spend more time as a family now.

“This money has come at the right time for us and is going to benefit the whole family.

“The win is not just for us, it is for us to share and everyone’s life is going to be so much more enjoyable and stress-free.”

The couple plan to start the search for their dream home, complete with a kitchen with all mod cons.

Mrs Bayford also plans to buy the car of her dreams, an Audi Q7, while her husband has always wanted to visit the Canadian Rockies by train. The children want to visit Disney World.

Mrs Bayford said: “Children’s charities are close to our hearts so we will be exploring how we can use this money to help those charities, but it is too soon to say exactly what.”

The Bayfords are the seventh big EuroMillions jackpot winners from the UK this year.

According to the Sunday Times Rich List, they now have a fortune to rival Jamie and Jools Oliver (£150m), Sir Tom Jones (£140m), and Eric Clapton (£130m).

Their win places them 516th in the UK Rich List.