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

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

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Winning a existence-transforming sum of money is actually a dream harboured by lots of, but what's lifestyle like when that really transpires?

"Ray, We have a few figures!"

Sat at home on the Saturday night time, nurse Barbara Wragg experienced switched within the Tv set to get the National Lottery effects.

Supplying a operating commentary to her husband Ray, Individuals 3 matching figures within the couple's ticket speedily grew to become "4", then "five" after which you can astoundingly, the magic "6".

Inside of fifty percent an hour, the pair learnt that they had gained the £7.6m jackpot and existence experienced transformed eternally.


Recalling that instant Virtually a quarter of a century on, Ray remembers: "I stated "you happen to be kidding me?!"

"We had been caught for how to proceed and what to say. We have been just flabbergasted."

A person in his eighties sits on a black sofa in a very living room. He is holding a brass-coloured trophy in the shape with the Countrywide Lottery logo
Ray Wragg and wife Barbara obtained a Particular trophy from lottery organisers for their philanthropy

Ray, who turns 87 on New 12 months's Day, cracked open a can of Guinness, even though Barbara had a glass of wine.

The pair sang 'Who wants to become a millionaire' as they referred to as their three kids to inform them the news.

"Half an hour or so later on we rang Camelot and we found out we might gained £7.6m that evening," Ray states.

Another connect with roofer Ray, from Sheffield, would make was to his boss, Dave, the subsequent morning.

He was due to be back again at Focus on a creating web-site in south Wales at 08:00 GMT about the Monday, which might have necessary the then sixty two-calendar year-old to leave property for a 4-hour drive while in the early hrs of the darkish Winter season morning.

When Ray instructed him he had decided to retire, a stunned Dave responded by asking him tongue-in-cheek, "have you won the lottery?!"

"Perfectly, Sure I have," was Ray's sincere reply.

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

"I didn't understand what to say but I would by no means have said 'stuff your position' or nearly anything like that. I'm not that kind of man or woman."

Though the development field sooner or later turned "tiring" and involved him travelling around 1,000 miles each week to all four corners of the UK, Ray states he liked get the job done.

But the prospect of retirement for him and for Barbara, who experienced labored evening shifts on the Royal Hallamshire Clinic for 22 a long time, was also excellent to skip.

The very first thing Ray did While using the winnings was purchase a £52,000 white Array Rover, even though the couple also went over a glamorous cruise.

Barbara's concern of traveling had Earlier restricted them to domestic vacations.

"I do think we went to Torquay for about 20 years on the trot - all five of us," Ray claims.

Like most lottery winners, Ray and Barbara took the chance to pass on some of their winnings for their children together with other family members.

But it had been their generosity to Others exterior their family device which might make headlines during the years that adopted.

They reportedly gave absent most in their winnings - earning a rebuke from their fiscal advisor.


PA A few dressed in pink and white Sheffield United shirts keep champagne flutes bearing the Nationwide Lottery emblem aloft. A soccer bearing the Sheffield United badge is between their heads.PA
Barbara Wragg had labored like a nurse in Sheffield for many years
Barbara, who died of sepsis in 2018 for the age of 77, at the time publicly explained their winnings had been "too much for two people".

"We had people today say 'do you not want to help keep it for yourselves?'" Ray suggests now.

"But we had been inside our sixties (at enough time) and we produced a good deal of men and women satisfied."

Tens of thousands was given away towards the medical center in which Barbara experienced worked, and also towards the community children's medical center.

There was also £twelve,000 to allow Environment War Two veterans to return to Monte Cassino in Italy in 2004, sixty years following Allied Forces won an important victory there.

The pair have been left touched by a a number of the correspondence they obtained Later on, which provided letters from widows of soldiers who experienced died to the battlefield.


A man in his eighties sits on a black couch within a front room. He is Keeping a black coffee mug. A lampshade is from the track record.
Ray suggests the lottery altered his and Barbara's lives, although not them as people today
One more act of philanthropy stands out in Ray's intellect.

"We picked up the Sheffield Star newspaper a single night time, in addition to a youthful lad of eleven or twelve experienced saved his cash up to obtain a bike," he remembers.

"He'd absent in the park and these three lads experienced operate off with it and left him, the inadequate lad."

The Wraggs experienced a mountain bicycle they'd barely utilised and so termed up the Star to help make ตรวจ หวย ย้อน หลัง connection with the boy's family so they might give it to him.

"You cannot buy the expression on his experience," Ray claims. "He was jumping up and down for Pleasure and riding up and down, as you'd probably should you had been a kid."

The pair's charity get the job done acquired them a Unique trophy from Camelot in 2002, and also invitations to Buckingham Palace and also the Pleasure of Britain awards.

They rubbed shoulders with Richard Branson, Princess Diana's former butler and the Coronation Road cast, but Ainsley Harriott stands out in Ray's brain as among the list of "nicest" superstars the pair met.


Sheffield United admirer Ray still goes swimming at his community leisure centre a few early mornings a week and he remains a Bramall Lane typical with the weekends.

He insists he is never had any bother from folks since that huge get 25 a long time in the past.

"All they've wanted to do if they us in the road is rub our shoulder for a little luck and thank us for what we've carried out for the youngsters.

"We've experienced an amazing time and helped a lot of folks," he smiles.

Ray states he and Barbara remembered their roots and would've remained delighted folks even experienced they not won the lottery.

"I used to be Doing work, Barbara was working, the children were Functioning," he claims. "We had been all ideal.

"Like other people do, we saved up.

"It modified our lives although not us as persons.

"Which is stood us in superior stead. I continue to check out the cost of a pair of socks you realize!"

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