Lottery winners to share their fortune with NHS

Sheila Davidson, a 53-year-old grandmother, and her bagpipe-playing husband Duncan won £4,520,120 after Mrs Davidson decided to buy some Lucky Dip tickets on the Lotto after winning at a fun game of bingo with friends.

Mrs Davidson, who was diagnosed with a rare mouth cancer two years ago, said she was determined to give some of her winnings to the hospital specialists who saved her life.

The couple are the second major Lotto winners from the Aberdeenshire village of Alford. Two years ago, villagers Robert and Susan McIntosh won £4.4m.

Mrs Davidson said she had been playing the lottery with the same numbers for years with only the odd £10 win.

“The night before the draw I had been out with friends at a house and we were playing a stupid bingo game and I kept winning every row,” she said. “I won eight times and the girls said that I had to try the lottery. And that’s why I bought the additional tickets on Saturday. I put on £2 on lucky dips. I didn’t win anything at the bingo. It was just silly parcels and I won eight of them.”

The mother two, who is quitting her job as a stock control manager with Craigdon Mountain Sports, said she had decided to check her numbers on the computer on Saturday night because she was unable to sleep.

She said: “I checked and I had them [all six numbers] and I thought there was something wrong and that the computer’s not right so I shut it off.

“I put the computer on again and the numbers were still the same. I couldn’t believe it.

“I thought I was going mad so I woke my husband Duncan to check. But he wasn’t convinced either. It was now 2am and we were still in complete denial that we could be so lucky. So we got in the car and drove around Alford looking for my daughter.

“She was at a friend’s house but, of course, came straight home when I told her the news. She checked them too and confirmed that we weren’t going insane. We had actually won the jackpot.

“None of us slept that night. And it still hasn’t sunk in.”

The couple, who have been married for 35 years, are planning to buy a new car, take a holiday, and treat their family with their winnings.

But Mr Davidson, who has already quit his job as a roofer with the company he has worked with for 42 years, said: “We are going to spend the money – slowly.”

Mr Davidson, who has been a piper with the Lonach Pipe Band in Strathdon since 1964, also said they had no plans to move. “I built our house 30 years ago so we are staying in it,” he said.

But Mrs Davidson said one of her first acts would be to make a donation to the maxillio facial unit at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary where she was treated after being diagnosed with cancer.

She said: “They helped me get better and without them, I wouldn’t be here today.

“Money would have been of no use to me if I didn’t have my health.”