'We won the lottery but I even now check the price of socks'

Winning a everyday living-switching amount of money can be a aspiration harboured by lots of, but what exactly is existence like when that really takes place?

"Ray, we've got three quantities!"

Sat in your house on a Saturday night time, nurse Barbara Wragg experienced switched around the TV to obtain the Nationwide Lottery final results.

Giving a functioning commentary to her spouse Ray, People a few matching figures about the couple's ticket promptly became "four", then "5" and after that astoundingly, the magic "6".

Inside of 50 % an hour, the pair learnt that they had won the £7.6m jackpot and life had transformed for good.


Recalling that moment Nearly a quarter of a century on, Ray remembers: "I stated "you're kidding me?!"

"We had been stuck for how to proceed and what to state. We have been just flabbergasted."

A man in his eighties sits on a black couch in the lounge. He's holding a brass-coloured trophy in The form of your Countrywide Lottery brand
Ray Wragg and wife Barbara acquired a Exclusive trophy from lottery organisers for his or her philanthropy

Ray, who turns 87 on New Yr's Working day, cracked open up a can of Guinness, even though Barbara had a glass of wine.

The pair sang 'Who would like to certainly be a millionaire' because they named their three small children to tell them the information.

"Half one hour later on we rang Camelot and we learned we would won £7.6m that evening," Ray claims.

The subsequent phone roofer Ray, from Sheffield, would make was to his manager, Dave, the following morning.

He was due to be back at work on a setting up website in south Wales at 08:00 GMT within the Monday, which would have required the then 62-year-aged to depart residence for just a 4-hour generate within the early several hours of a dim Wintertime morning.

When Ray explained to him he experienced made a decision to retire, a astonished Dave responded by inquiring him tongue-in-cheek, "have you received the lottery?!"

"Properly, Indeed I've," was Ray's trustworthy reply.

Wraggs to riches
"I retired that Saturday night time in some respects," Ray suggests, recalling that weekend in January 2000.

"I did not know what to mention but I might by no means have claimed 'things your position' or nearly anything like that. I'm not that sort of particular person."

Although the construction field at some point grew to become "tiring" and associated him travelling nearly one,000 miles every week to all four corners of the united kingdom, Ray states he liked get the job done.

But the possibility of retirement for him and for Barbara, who had worked night time shifts within the Royal Hallamshire Healthcare facility for 22 decades, was as well superior to skip.

The first thing Ray did Using the winnings was purchase a £52,000 white Variety Rover, while the pair also went over a glamorous cruise.

Barbara's dread of flying had previously limited them to domestic holiday seasons.

"I feel we went to Torquay for about 20 years to the trot - all 5 of us," Ray says.

Like most lottery winners, Ray and Barbara took the opportunity to move on some in their winnings for their youngsters and also other family.

But it had been their generosity to Others outside their loved ones unit which would make headlines in the many years that followed.

They reportedly gave away most of their winnings - earning a rebuke from their monetary advisor.


PA A couple wearing pink and white Sheffield United shirts keep champagne flutes bearing the Nationwide Lottery logo aloft. A football bearing the Sheffield United badge is between their heads.PA
Barbara Wragg had labored for a nurse in Sheffield for decades
Barbara, who died of sepsis in 2018 on the age of seventy seven, when publicly said their winnings ended up "far too much for two folks".

"We experienced men and women say 'does one not want to keep it for yourselves?'" Ray claims now.

"But we were in our sixties (at enough time) and we manufactured a whole lot of men and women pleased."

Tens of 1000's was presented absent to the hospital the place Barbara had labored, as well as towards the local kid's healthcare facility.

There was also £twelve,000 to allow Planet War Two veterans to return to Monte Cassino in Italy in 2004, sixty years following Allied Forces received a vital victory there.

The couple were remaining touched by a many of the correspondence they acquired afterwards, which integrated letters from widows of soldiers who had died over the battlefield.


A man in his eighties sits on the black couch in a front room. He's Keeping a black coffee mug. A lampshade is during the track record.
Ray suggests the lottery changed his and Barbara's life, but not them as persons
A different act of philanthropy stands out in Ray's intellect.

"We picked up the Sheffield Star newspaper 1 night, plus a younger lad of eleven or twelve had saved his funds up to get a bike," he recollects.

"He'd long gone in the park and these three lads experienced run off with it and remaining him, the inadequate lad."

The Wraggs experienced a mountain bike they'd scarcely used and so named up the Star to generate ตรวจ หวย ล่าสุด contact with the boy's loved ones so they may give it to him.

"You cannot purchase the expression on his experience," Ray says. "He was jumping up and down for Pleasure and Driving up and down, as you'd probably if you have been A child."

The pair's charity function acquired them a Distinctive trophy from Camelot in 2002, and also Invites to Buckingham Palace and the Pride of Britain awards.

They rubbed shoulders with Richard Branson, Princess Diana's former butler and also the Coronation Street cast, but Ainsley Harriott stands out in Ray's thoughts as one of the "nicest" celebrities the couple met.


Sheffield United fan Ray even now goes swimming at his area leisure centre a few early mornings weekly and he remains a Bramall Lane regular in the weekends.

He insists he is hardly ever had any trouble from persons considering that that massive acquire twenty five several years ago.

"All they've wanted to do whenever they us in the road is rub our shoulder for a certain amount of luck and thank us for what we've performed for the kids.

"We've had an amazing time and served a lot of individuals," he smiles.

Ray states he and Barbara remembered their roots and might have remained delighted people even had they not received the lottery.

"I had been Doing the job, Barbara was Doing the job, the youngsters ended up Doing work," he says. "We were all right.

"Like other people do, we saved up.

"It improved our lives although not us as people.

"That's stood us in good stead. I however examine the cost of a pair of socks you know!"

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