Colne couple speak about how £61M win on EuroMillions Lottery will change their lives

Those were the words of Lottery winner Richard Nuttall who scooped a staggering £61,708, 231 on the EuroMillions jackpot. Richard and his wife Debbie, who are both 54, and live in Colne, discovered their enormous win while on holiday in Fuerteventura where they had gone to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. It was on the second day of the break when Richard checked an email from the National Lottery to discover he had won £2.60!

Richard said: “ I shut my laptop, had breakfast and then we set off for the day, driving around the island. We enjoyed the sea views, blue skies and windsurfers before heading back. It was early afternoon when we spotted another email saying we should check our account.

" I thought it was odd and there must be a glitch in the system to get a duplicate email but I logged in again to my National Lottery account to check. We were totally stunned, it said we had won over £61M.”

After failing to get a decent signal in their hotel to ring the National Lottery the couple desperately drove round the Canary island searching for a decent mobile signal so they could confirm they had one of the two winning tickets that shared the £123M EuroMillions jackpot in the draw on Tuesday, January 30th. When they eventually managed to confirm it Richard admitted he was still suspicious that it could be a scam even though he had rung the official National Lottery number. When the news sank in the couple described their reaction to that of Del Boy and Rodney in the iconic hit TV comedy “Only Fools and Horses’ when they discover they are millionaires. Richard said: “We were in the car jumping in our seats and punching the air.”

Early retirement is now on the cards for the pair and they have scrapped their plans to downsize and instead plan to buy a bigger home with a big garden, a greenhouse and extra land for their dog Monty. Keen golfer Richard has already made his first purchase of a brand new BMW X5 with a boot large enough for all his golf clubs.

Richard and Debbie also have a charity close to their hearts, for which they are ambassadors and plan to continue to support, called BK’S Heroes. The charity was set up in their nephew Ben King’s memory after he died of a rare condition, Tubular Interstitial Nephritis and Uveitis, at age 27. The whole family support the charity which aims to raise awareness of brain cancer and kidney disease as well as raising funds for research into prevention and treatment of these illnesses. Richard said: “This charity means so much to our family and we are all involved. It was originally set up to raise funds for the ward where Ben was so brilliantly cared for but we have gone on to raise much more. Ben was such an inspiration to all of us. He was incredibly brave and positive throughout his treatment and it was his wish for this charity to be set up to do what it can to help lives in the future.”