I've cleaned up on the lottery. But I'll stay on at the laundry

After all, her £150 weekly wage there is dwarfed by the £1,100 a week she receives in interest on her winnings.

Yet the 47-year-old was soon back at work cleaning dirty sheets. She said she couldn't give up such an important part of her life.

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"I just wanted to get back to normality and the best way of doing that was to stay in my old routine including going back to work," she explained.

"I know it might seem strange to some people but I've been working at the hospital for 21 years and it is a big part of my life.

"I like the people in the hospital and I feel at home there.

"I couldn't sit around all day. You can't spend all your life on holiday or shopping."

Miss Gilbert scooped £1,146,747 on the lottery seven weeks ago with a combination of birthday and random numbers she had been using for years.

When she struck lucky she was staying with family in her caravan in Weston- super-Mare, Somerset.

"The Lotto draw was happening on the television, so I decided to get a pen and paper to check the numbers," she recalled.

"All of a sudden I realised I'd written down all six of my regular numbers. I went to see my friends Kay and Tony who stay in the caravan pitch next to mine and we all just stood there looking at the ticket in disbelief.

"It was amazing. I went as white as a sheet. I was off work ill when I won the lottery and nobody thought I would go back. But once I was fit enough I couldn't wait to go back.

"I'm determined to keep my feet on the ground and just wanted to put my life back on an even keel after all the excitement."

Miss Gilbert earns £6 an hour at the laundry of the Llanfrechfa Grange Hospital in Cwmbran, Gwent.

She drives there in her Peugeot 206 which she refuses to change for a more luxurious make.

She is also holding on to her modest £90,000 three-bedroom terraced house in Abertillery.

Miss Gilbert, who was 16 and single when she had her only child Marcus, said she had struggled with money all her life.

Her sole foreign trip had been a holiday in Spain 29 years ago.

But since her win she has splashed out on taking Marcus, 31, and his girlfriend to Turkey for a week.

She also plans to take her family to Disneyland in Florida.

Her father Lionel, 72, said: "We're delighted for her. Since she was 12 Joanne has dreamed of going to America and now at last that dream will come true. She really deserves it."

Miss Gilbert is aware that as a single woman with a large fortune she is now a target for suitors.

However she warned any hopefuls: "Don't bother, I'm happy living on my own with my two dogs." A spokesman for Gwent NHS Hospital Trust said: "We are delighted for Joanne at her win.

"We are pleased she has come back to work and is a valued member of the staff at the hospital."

Miss Gilbert is not the only lottery winner to try to hold on to their old life.

Mary Jones, 62, from Bala in North Wales scooped £9.3million in 2004 but carried on in her job as a cleaner at an activity centre.

In 1997, carpenter David Ashcroft, 37, won £12.3million on the lottery. Seven years later he was still in the same anorak and living in the same terraced home in Liverpool with his parents.