Couple who won £1.7m on Lotto still get up at 3am to run fruit and veg shop

Instead, they still wake at 3am each day to work in their fruit and veg shop and have resisted all temptations to leave their £200,000 three-bedroom home.

Eight months on, their windfall has been barely touched. When they have spent, it has been on such everyday items as a new vacuum cleaner and two secondhand cars.

And when it came to Mrs Watson's 50th birthday last week there was no glamorous party at an exclusive venue - they simply invited a few friends and family to join them at their local pub in Darlington.

Mr Watson said: "We went to Tiffany's to buy some jewellery. Sue said she wanted a diamond ring, so I said, 'Right, which one would you like?' but she refused to pay those kind of prices.

"I imagine, in a lot of ways, if you win £35million on the Euromillions like Angela Kelly did recently it's easier to spend it - although £1million hasn't hurt us."

The couple won £1.17million in February but vowed never to let it change their lives and promised customers that their shop would remain open.

Mr Watson gets up at 3am to buy fresh produce while his wife opens the shop at 9am and works until 6pm.

She said: £There's no point in retiring yet, that's something we can do any time.

£We're part of the community. Our business is more than just a shop. I don't want to seem big-headed and over the top but everyone in the village knows who we are."

She added: "Winning the lottery hasn't changed us and people still treat us the same way as they always have."

The couple have allowed themselves a few luxuries. They holidayed in Florida and spent a weekend in London.

They even flew to New York - but instead of shopping at Prada or Gucci, Mrs Watson preferred the high street chain Zara. She said: "Paul said to me, 'You can afford to shop in any one of these shops', but I love my Zara dress, even though I could probably have got it at the MetroCentre in Newcastle."

Among their other purchases was a second-hand Jaguar with 8,000 miles on the clock which Mr Watson bought as a surprise for his wife. He also bought himself a second-hand car, not a Porsche or a Ferrari (although he could have afforded one of each), but a Mitsubishi Shogun which he now uses to make his deliveries.

The couple, who have two grownup children, have also paid off the mortgage on the home they've lived in for 19 years and have no intention of moving.

Both are from working class families. Mr Watson's father was a publican-while his wife's father worked in an engineering factory.

Mrs Watson said: "When we found out we'd won, Paul was just in a heap on the bedroom floor with his head in his hands, sobbing and hyperventilating.

"He said, 'People like you and I have never had anything. We've had to work so hard for everything we've ever had'."