Winning a life-shifting amount of money is really a dream harboured by numerous, but what's everyday living like when that actually takes place?

"Ray, We have a few numbers!"

Sat in your own home with a Saturday evening, nurse Barbara Wragg had switched within the Television to obtain the National Lottery final results.

Providing a working commentary to her spouse Ray, All those three matching quantities on the couple's ticket rapidly became "four", then "5" after which astoundingly, the magic "6".

Within 50 % an hour or so, the pair learnt they had received the £7.6m jackpot and lifetime had altered for good.


Recalling that instant almost a quarter of the century on, Ray remembers: "I said "you are kidding me?!"

"We have been caught for how to proceed and what to convey. We were just flabbergasted."

A person in his eighties sits on a black sofa inside of a family room. He's holding a brass-coloured trophy in the shape of the National Lottery symbol
Ray Wragg and spouse Barbara acquired a Specific trophy from lottery organisers for his or her philanthropy

Ray, who turns 87 on New Year's Day, cracked open up a can of Guinness, when Barbara experienced a glass of wine.

The pair sang 'Who wants to certainly be a millionaire' since they termed their 3 young children to tell them the information.

"Fifty percent an hour afterwards we rang Camelot and we discovered we'd received £7.6m that night," Ray suggests.

Another connect with roofer Ray, from Sheffield, would make was to his boss, Dave, the following morning.

He was on account of be back at Focus on a creating website in south Wales at 08:00 GMT over the Monday, which might have needed the then 62-12 months-old to leave dwelling for any 4-hour push in the early hours of the dark Wintertime morning.

When Ray informed him he had decided to retire, a shocked Dave responded by asking him tongue-in-cheek, "Have you ever gained the lottery?!"

"Properly, Of course I've," was Ray's truthful reply.

Wraggs to riches
"I retired that Saturday night in a few respects," Ray says, recalling that weekend in January 2000.

"I did not know very well what to state but I'd hardly ever have claimed 'things your career' or nearly anything like that. I'm not that kind of human being."

While the development sector inevitably turned "tiring" and associated him travelling as much as 1,000 miles every week to all 4 corners of the UK, Ray says he appreciated operate.

But the possibility of retirement for him and for Barbara, who experienced worked night time shifts within the Royal Hallamshire Medical center for 22 yrs, was way too fantastic to miss out on.

The first thing Ray did Together with the winnings was buy a £fifty two,000 white Selection Rover, whilst the pair also went on a glamorous cruise.

Barbara's fear of traveling experienced previously restricted them to domestic holiday seasons.

"I think we went to Torquay for about 20 years around the trot - all 5 of us," Ray claims.

Like most lottery winners, Ray and Barbara took the chance to pass on some of their winnings to their youngsters along with other kin.

But it was their generosity to Others outdoors their household unit which might make headlines in the decades that followed.

They reportedly gave absent most in their winnings - earning a rebuke from their monetary advisor.


PA A pair dressed in red and white Sheffield United shirts keep champagne flutes bearing the National Lottery brand aloft. A soccer bearing the Sheffield United badge is in between their heads.PA
Barbara Wragg experienced labored being a nurse in Sheffield for many years
Barbara, who died of sepsis in 2018 on the age of seventy seven, once publicly mentioned their winnings ended up "an excessive amount of for two men and women".

"We had persons say 'would you not want to maintain it for yourselves?'" Ray suggests now.

"But we were being inside our sixties (at the time) and we produced quite a bit of men and women joyful."

Tens of thousands was provided away for the clinic in which Barbara had labored, and to your regional children's healthcare facility.

There was also £twelve,000 to permit Earth War Two veterans to return to Monte Cassino in Italy in 2004, 60 yrs soon after Allied Forces won a vital victory there.

The pair were being left touched by a some of the correspondence they acquired Later on, which integrated letters from widows of soldiers who had died about the battlefield.


A person in his eighties sits over a black couch in a living room. He is holding a black coffee mug. A lampshade is from the track record.
Ray claims the lottery altered his and Barbara's lives, although not them as people today
Yet another act of philanthropy stands out in Ray's intellect.

"We picked up the Sheffield Star newspaper a single night, in addition to a young lad of eleven or twelve had saved his income up to acquire a motorbike," he recollects.

"He'd absent to the park and these a few lads experienced run off with it and remaining him, the lousy lad."

The Wraggs had a mountain bicycle they'd scarcely applied and so termed up the Star to help make หวย หุ้น contact with the boy's loved ones so they may give it to him.

"You cannot purchase the expression on his experience," Ray says. "He was jumping up and down for Pleasure and riding up and down, as you should for those who have been A child."

The pair's charity get the job done earned them a Specific trophy from Camelot in 2002, and invitations to Buckingham Palace as well as Pride of Britain awards.

They rubbed shoulders with Richard Branson, Princess Diana's former butler as well as the Coronation Road Solid, but Ainsley Harriott stands out in Ray's mind as one of many "nicest" famous people the couple met.


Sheffield United enthusiast Ray nevertheless goes swimming at his community leisure centre 3 early mornings per week and he remains a Bramall Lane regular at the weekends.

He insists he's never ever had any trouble from persons considering that that huge win twenty five yrs ago.

"All they've needed to do when they us in the road is rub our shoulder for a certain amount of luck and thank us for what we've completed for the children.

"We have experienced a wonderful time and served a lot of people," he smiles.

Ray says he and Barbara remembered their roots and would've remained joyful people even experienced they not gained the lottery.

"I was working, Barbara was working, the youngsters have been Doing work," he says. "We were being all appropriate.

"Like other households do, we saved up.

"It altered our life but not us as folks.

"That's stood us in superior stead. I even now take a look at the price of a set of socks you already know!"

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