Builder had to convince poorly father he really had won £1m on lottery
Sadly, Terry Gillings' 85-year-old father died two days after hearing about the County Durham family's life-changing win.
But Mr Gillings, 61, and wife Caroline, 54, were determined to enjoy their good fortune which they will share with their four daughters.
Mr Gillings, whose father had prostate cancer and Parkinson's disease, said: 'I told dad we'd won a million and, true to character, his first words were 'piss off, don't lie to us!'
'I like to think knowing Caroline and I, and the girls, were all well set up for the future meant he slipped away more peacefully.
'My dad always said celebrate the wins, that's exactly what we intend to do and I've enjoyed telling everyone I've bumped into since that we've won.'
The couple will use their win to pay off their daughters' mortgages, and Mr Gillings said: 'We've always worked hard and helped our kids where we can but this is a whole other level – surely it's every parent's dream.
'We decided pretty much straight away that we wanted the girls to benefit from our luck.
'I'll never forget phoning our daughters to tell them that their mortgages were being paid off, it generated quite a bit of screaming and joy.'
Mr Gillings has been a builder since he left school and continued to work in the days after the win but might now focus on his own project, developing a plot of land he bought with a friend some years ago.
The couple will also use money to support Breast Cancer Awareness after close family members were affected by the condition.
He said: 'We've had our share of bad luck and hopefully by donating some of our win we can help other families to be luckier when it comes to this horrible disease.'
Mr and Mrs Gillings also plan to visit Indonesia to see the endangered Bali myna birds, which he breeds, and to visit Machu Picchu in Peru.
They won the Lotto game on March 26 with the numbers 14, 17, 18, 22, 34 and 58.
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In 2022, I decided to write a book to help others. How Did I Get Here: Building A Life Beyond Alcohol wasn't just about sharing my story - it was about telling the truth. Even when I got sober, there weren't enough stories that talked about the identity crisis, the grief, the rediscovery, the unlearning, the rising. I wanted women to know they weren't broken. Drinking has been normalised, glamourised, romanticised to the point where not drinking makes you the weird one. But here's the truth: you don't need alcohol to have fun, to fit in, or to survive the day. And once you realise that, once you live that - you start to see the lie for what it is.
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