Notts landing... Lotto jackpot winners keep up charmed county’s lucky streak

Jim Emerton, 56, and his wife Maureen, 55, from Carlton in Nottingham, scooped a £4,449,039 prize after matching all six numbers in Saturday’s Lotto draw.

The region has had its fair share of good luck this year – on January 20 Gareth and Catherine Bull, from Mansfield, banked £40,627,241, while Cassey Carrington and Matt Topham, both 22 and from Stapleford, took home a cool £45,160,170.50 after winning on February 7.

The couple said they thought the win was an elaborate April Fool’s joke when they checked their ticket on April 1.

Mr Emerton said he thought they had a “trick ticket”.

He said: “When we checked the numbers and our ticket again on Sunday morning, we remembered it was April 1, so we thought it was an April Fool’s joke.”

Asked how they felt about living in such a lucky county, Mr Emerton said: “I’ve been told, I didn’t realise, that Nottingham is very lucky. That’s good for me.”

Like the previous two winners in the county, Mr Emerton, who has just started working in the quality control department at the Toyota factory in Burnaston, near Derby, and Mrs Emerton won their millions on a Lucky Dip ticket.

It was Mrs Emerton, a housewife, who first realised they had won, but her husband thought she was playing a prank on him. “I said: ‘You’re not going to believe me but we’ve got every number’,” she told the press conference.

Mr Emerton continued: “The more she said it, the more I didn’t believe her because she didn’t seem that excited.

“She said it was because she just couldn’t believe it.”

Mr and Mrs Emerton, who have six grandchildren, said they were “ecstatic” and planned to take a cruise to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary in June.

They also plan to buy their first ever home, after having been renters for many years, and will take the family on holiday, perhaps to Disneyworld in Florida, and buy a new car.

Mr Emerton has been a self-employed electrician but with little work around applied for his job at Toyota five weeks ago. He has now decided to take early retirement.

And their lucky streak may be their first but perhaps not their last as they will still continue to play the lottery. “We can afford it now you see,” Mr Emerton joked.