The £12m lottery winner whose life has changed only by the colour of his coat

But he predicted that the £12.3million National Lottery jackpot - the fourth biggest at the time - would not change him.

And the intervening decade seems to have proved him right.

Scroll down for more

Now aged 40, he still lives in the same house with his parents and spends most of his days working as a furniture restorer, the job for which he trained as a teenager.

His only visible spending on himself is a new van, double glazing for the family's Liverpool home and a caravan in North Wales where they go away on holiday.

And while he is sporting a different coloured coat these days (it's blue - the previous one was green) it doesn't look like it cost any more than its predecessor.

Scroll down for more

It's all a far cry from the famous extravagance of Viv Nicholson, who won £152,319 (equivalent to about £3million today) on the football pools in 1961.

She declared she would spend, spend, spend. True to her word, she and her husband

Keith managed to blow the lot in four years.

And only last month £8million lottery winner Jennifer Southall, from Newport, Gwent, announced she would be splashing out Nicholsonstyle.

Exotic holidays were at the top of her wish list, she said.

In contrast, at the time of his win in May 1997, Mr Ashcroft admitted he had never had a girlfriend or travelled abroad and said his only passion was fine furniture.

He does not drink or smoke and his only vice appears to be the occasional cream cake which has resulted in him gaining about a stone.

On winning his rollover jackpot - now 17th on the all-time list of biggest wins - he said: "I'm an ordinary, quiet introvert. This may change me but I hope not."

At the time, he was living with his parents in a three-bedroom terraced house in Liverpool, and sure enough, ten years on, Roy, now 70, and Jean, 68, remain his constant companions.

Every morning he drives to his workshop to continue practising the skill in cabinet-making and furniture-restoring which he learnt with the help of Youth Training Scheme and Prince's Trust grants after leaving school at 16.

Before becoming a multi-millionaire, he told of his love for his craft - one also followed by his grandfather - and explained: "I always wanted to be my own boss and I have always been interested in and enjoyed working with my hands."

Today, the only obvious signs of wealth are the replacement windows and doors on the house - which is worth around £165,000 - and the new van he uses for his business.

On the subject of romance, Mr Ashcroft told interviewers following his win: "Any girlfriends from the past will probably come from my days in kindergarten.

"Miss Right may be out there. Who knows what fate may bring."

He has not spoken publicly since then but neighbours said that as far as they could tell his win did not seem to have changed his lifestyle one bit.

"No one can quite fathom it," said one. "He's got money to burn and yet he seems to spend next to nothing on himself.

"Some people say he is afraid of what it would do to him if he ever started spending it. He is afraid of what he might become.

"It seems he has made his mind up never to talk about it, so we may never know what's behind it all."

Financial experts reckon Mr Ashcroft could have doubled his fortune if he had invested his money in property.

Even with prudent stock market investments, it would have grown by £3million.

Despite failing to treat himself, he has nevertheless been generous with relatives - both his brother Alan and sisters Janet and Lynn have been treated to top-of-the range cars, including a £60,000 Ferrari, while his father bought personalised number plates for his own van.