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Husband who beat cancer wins £45m lottery jackpot
Jonathan Prynn, Consumer Business Editor10 Nov 2009
Her tiny marketing consultancy promises her clients Simple Profitable Solutions — but they probably did not expect her words of wisdom to include: “Make sure you buy a lottery ticket.”
Today Samantha Peachey-Scadding and her husband Les are celebrating the most profitable “solution” of them all after landing half of the biggest ever British lottery jackpot.
Mr Scadding, 58, and his 38-year-old wife won £45,570,835.50 in Friday's Euromillions draw, the same amount shared by a syndicate of IT workers in Liverpool known as the “The Magnificent Seven”.
Until today the couple, from Caerleon, Gwent, relied on Samantha's income after her truck driver husband was made redundant last Christmas.
The consultancy declared net assets of just £742 in its last accounts.
They now have enough money to swap their end of terrace three-bedroom home for a six-storey Belgravia house — or blow it on more than 4,000 bottles of 1900 Château Margaux 1er cru classé at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay.
Recovered cancer sufferer Mr Scadding, who has three children from a previous marriage, bought the winning ticket at a Tesco on Friday and initially thought he had won about £50,000.
He said: “I always said it is not if I win the lottery but when I win it. My daughter lives in Abu Dhabi and every time we speak she always says to me: Have you won the lottery yet, Dad?' When I told her the whoop at the end was just incredible.” The couple plan to buy a holiday home in Barbados. Les said: “The last time we were there we were in a restaurant overlooking some beautiful holiday homes and I told Sam: When I win the lottery I will buy it for you'.”
He added: “To start with being unemployed meant I could have a few extra games of golf and meet the lads in the pub at lunchtime.
“But it wasn't like that. We have struggled this year but now it is my turn to make it up to Sam. I'm going to look after her like she has looked after me.”
The other winners, who work for IT consultants Hewlett Packard at a BT office in Liverpool, today spoke of how they feared they were about to be made redundant when syndicate leader John Walsh phoned them.
The 57-year-old first checked he still had the ticket then called the others.
He said: “I didn't quite get the response I expected because they all thought I was calling them to say they had been made redundant. But thankfully I got to tell them some good news instead.”
Reader views (7)
FANTASTIC! He must have been through hell and back and I really hope he enjoys the rest of his life.
You're a free man (no more ball & chain money worries). Enjoy it!!!
- Peter Flannigan, Derby, 10/11/2009 23:19
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I just don't understand why these people want to go
public and tell the world. I suspect they must be put
under pressure by Camelot to do so, for publicity
purposes - but then I'm very cynical about publicity
anyway!
- Lb, Bromley, 10/11/2009 21:31
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so very pleased for you all congrats spend is wisely
- Sylvia Line, london, 10/11/2009 17:05
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Congratulations - I am delighted that these people have won.
In these days of "envy, greed and a give it to me society" my only hope is that, as SM Hearmon says "Use it wisely" is very sensible.
I am happy for them - the only thing, if it was me, I would do - the gentelman who had cancer might, if he wishes, donate whatever he feels, to a hospice or something like that - just a thought.
Good luck to you all
- Elizabeth Taylor, dallas.tx, 10/11/2009 15:09
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Frankly, if it was myself who'd won, I'd have kept my identity secret. These days, with the way society is fast crumbling, it's the sensible option.
I can just hear certain elements of society scribbling the begging letters, while criminal gangs try to be first to work out where precisely they live.
- Jock, Ardmair, Scotland, 10/11/2009 11:34
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Congratulations to you all for winning.
Now, take my advice, put the money in to a Swiss Bank Account immediately before Mr Darling touches it.
Better still, leave the UK altogether before it collapses and takes your money with it!
And to think of all those millions of people who have paid Billions of Pounds in to the lottery for years and have received nothing! And ironically, precisely those who cannot afford to lose the money in the first place!
Again congaratulations to those who won, and I hope that you are genuine, and not a fiction created by our Government to make people feel that the lottery is worth doing and that they may win like you in the future.
I know I go on about George Orwell a lot, but when he comments about the lottery as described in Estonia (1984) it may well be that these three people may be a creation of the Government who either never existed, or were just Government Employees who will have to pay the money back.
Again, I hope that the three are genuine, but I have reservations.
- Chris Richards, Chelmsford Essex, 09/11/2009 15:28
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Good for them, hope they enjoy it and use it wisely and have fun with it.
- S-M Hearmon, London, UK, 09/11/2009 12:50
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