I won £320k on lottery but brushed it off as a PRANK – I’d have lost out on huge jackpot if it wasn’t for crucial check

A LOTTO winner has told how she brushed off her £320,000 win as a prank before realising her windfall was real.

Rosemary Gray would have lost the entire jackpot if it wasn't for a crucial final check.

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Rosemary, who lives on Hazel Road in Penarth, South Wales, said her life was "an awful struggle" and didn't believe her win was real until she checked with her neighbours.

“It wasn’t until I checked with my neighbours that I realised it must be genuine", she said.

“They didn’t say how much I’d won, just that someone would be coming round the next day with more details."

Now Rosemary can visit her family in Australia after vowing "never again" when she was left in crippling pain on her last economy flight.

But the bumper win with the People’s Postcode Lottery has made her think again.

“Now I can afford a lie-down seat and I’m going to sleep in comfort all the way there and back,” she said after winning £320,000.

Rosemary is one of just three winners - neighbour Debbie won £640,000 because she had bought TWO tickets - in Hazel Road and said that as soon as the money drops into her account she’s buying a first class return flight to Sydney to see her civil engineer son, Emlyn, who emigrated to Australia 15 years ago, and her two grandchildren.

“The last time I went out there, after the pandemic, I was in such agony from being sat awkwardly in a seat both ways that I vowed I’d never go again,” said divorcee Rosemary, 75.

“I worked all my life in a care home and for most of that time we didn’t have the lifting machinery these places have to have now."

“Lifting patients in and out of bed, or the bath, was so hard on my back over the years that it’s left me with a pretty serious spinal injury."

“So travelling economy to the other side of the world and back was so painful I couldn’t face another trip."

“But now I’ve got the money - or at least, I will in a day or two - I can afford a first class ticket and sleep all the way there and back in a lie-down bed. It will be bliss.”

Rosemary, who has two sons, three daughters and 10 grandchildren, also plans to use a large chunk of her jackpot to buy a mobility scooter, equip her three-bed semi-detached home with ramps, grip rails and other disability aids to make her life easier.

“It means I can now stay in my lovely home and live more comfortably. This win was literally life changing for me,” she said.

Rosemary admitted that when she first received a call from a People’s Postcode Lottery representative telling her about the win last week, she though it might have been a prankster.

“When I found out how much I’d won, the first thing I did was treat my friend, who has been ill, to a takeaway Chinese meal."

“Then, when I got back home, my neighbours were waiting with a bottle of Champagne. ‘We didn’t want to start celebrating without you so we waited til you were home,’ they said. That was such a kind thought. That’s when it all started to sink in, I think."

“Since then, whenever I think about the money and the opportunities it’s going to give me for the rest of my life, my head starts spinning. It’s a truly wonderful feeling."

“I feel like all the pressures I was under a week or so ago have magically been taken away. I was living off a state pension, which isn’t a lot, and that was it. Now I’m set up for life.”

Rosemary, who lives at her neat home opposite a fire station with her pet dogs, shih tsu Bertie and chihuahua pug cross Jinx, also plans to have a small garage built in her from garden to store her mobility scooter.

“At last I’ll be able to get around Penarth again and I won’t have to have it cluttering up the house because they take up quite a lot of room,” she said.

“My life has been an awful struggle since I retired, but finally I feel like my luck has turned and life is worth living again."

“The last time I went out to a nightclub I was 60, but who knows, I just might have a night out at one again now.”

She said she has been playing the lottery since it began around 10 years ago and plans to keep her name in the draw.

“I think it’s a wonderful idea and I’m going to keep playing.”

Meanwhile, this UK lucky couple bagged a £1million jackpot twice after spotting a clue through a shop window.

Elsewhere, Another lotto player has hit the jackpot but still hasn't been paid the winnings - this bank card rule could mean he never gets it.

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