Town’s new millionaires celebrate their Lottery luck

This week Tom Nugent, 78 and wife Brenda,73 became millionaires after scooping £1m in Tuesday night’s contest.

Retired wagon driver Tom and former office worker and cleaner Brenda, who bought their winning ticket at their local Sainsbury’s supermarket, say the news hasn’t quite sunk in yet.

But at a special press conference at Barton Grange Hotel the delighted couple revealed their ambition now is to move from their Garstang house to a bungalow, maybe buy a new red VW Polo car, have some UK citybreaks and then share their good fortune with their family.

Tom, an avid North End fan, revealed he does not usually check his results until the morning after, but after deciding to see how PNE had fared, he thought he might as well see if their EuroMillions numbers had come up: “I looked at the numbers and said to myself ‘rubbish as usual’.”

But then he checked his Millionaire Maker code and discovered they were winners. After checking and rechecking it another four times he called out to Brenda who was reading in bed.

Brenda recalled: “We knew we had won, but we didn’t like to say until somebody had told us we’d won.”

After a sleepless night they rang Camelot and their £1m prize was confirmed.

Tom said: “I was just a bit shocked really - you just go numb.”

Brenda reported: “I just carried on with my washing.”

But soon they were in touch with Brenda’s son David and daughter Karen who they described as “ecstatic.”

Tom, a keen bowler, said: “Our seven grandchildren were next and they were just over the moon........Things like this don’t happen to people like us, it is a life changing moment and we are so lucky. The best thing is we can look after our family now which is growing with our five great grandchildren. They are all going on a family holiday to Spain next year which I’m sure we can upgrade for them now.“

The couple, who married 19 years ago, are adamant they won’t move far from Brenda’s home town - any bungalow will have to be in Garstang.

As for Tom’s life long love of PNE, he quipped it could be time to renew his season ticket. No doubt heartened by PNE’s 3-1 victory against Notts County on Tuesday he added: “I might even get a box.”

*The couple’s raffle code was RTC470920.