Video: Grandparents celebrate lottery scratchcard million

Grandparents Joan and Malcolm Nicholson were encouraged by winning £10 on

a National Lottery Monopoly Scratchcard last week and decided to purchase

another on Saturday.

The retired couple, who have been married for 45 years, spoke of their joy at

the win today but said they plan to save some of the cash for their family.

Joan, 71, who lives with Malcolm, 69, in Castleford, said: We

caught the bus home after shopping but I decided to wait until I got in to see

if the scratchcard was a winning one.

“I couldn’t believe it when it revealed that I’d won. I showed the scratchard

to Malcolm to make sure, and he thought it was a winning one but I still didn’t

believe it.

“I popped down to our local newsagents to make absolutely sure that it was good

news and the cashier checked it and said ‘congratulations, you’ve won’.

“I just screamed out, I couldn’t help it. Malcolm had to tell me to be quiet

and the shop assistant said it wasn’t a good idea to celebrate because there

were people around.

“I still can’t quite believe that I’ve been lucky enough to win such a

fantastic amount of money and it’s been a wonderful start to the year.”

Mrs Nicholson, a retired home care assistant, said she had only been playing the

scratchcards for a matter of months but had been regularly winning cash on

them.

The grandmother-of-five said: I bought one last week and won £10 on it

and I thought I may as well get another one and that is when it started. Even

before the win I was in front of it, I had definitely won more on them than I

had lost.”

Joan, who retired in 1992, and Malcolm, who worked for British Gas for 36 years

before being made redundant and working as a school caretaker up until four

years ago, say their first port of call for the money is a new property.

The couple, who celebrate their 46th wedding anniversary on March 14, are

going on a holiday they had already booked to Lanzarote but have much bigger

plans with a five-week cruise around Madeira, the Caribbean and America some

time next year.