Brighton dinner ladies win Lotto jackpot

12:27pm Friday 4th January 2013 in News

A syndicate of five dinner ladies from Brighton have banked a jackpot of £2,147,580 in the Lotto.

The four ladies and one gentleman each won a life-changing £429,516 in the draw on December 29 with the ticket bought in Sainsbury’s on New England Street, Brighton.

The syndicate of work colleagues have been playing every Wednesday and Saturday for 18 months, using a set of numbers chosen by each of the syndicate members.

Coris Bondsfield, 46, would buy the ticket for the group at a local National Lottery retailer and check the previous week results in her local paper.

But she swapped the weekly routine to discover the life-changing win.

She revealed, “Bizarrely I don’t normally check the numbers until I get the local paper each week, but for this draw I was tidying up some paperwork while my son was doing his homework.

"Amongst the recycling and pizza offers I found the play slips and decided to check them there and then.

"I checked the two lines I play with my husband but there was nothing, then the slip with three lines on, again nothing but when I started on the final slip the numbers just kept coming.

"I wrote the numbers down in numerical order and saw three matched, then four, then five.

"When it started to dawn on me what was happening, I had to ask my son to read them all back to me.

"We both sat there completely stunned until I found my voice again and simply said, ‘we’ve won’.”

The tightknit group of friends celebrate the win over a bottle of champsgne, before Coris and her family had a celebratory meal a restaurant at Brighton Marina.

The life changing win will buy some members of the syndicate new homes and the chance to reduce their work.

But Coris' priority is a Jack Russell puppy for her son.

She said: "A trip to South Africa will also be on the cards for us. My husbands’ best friend lives in Cape Town and with the winnings, it would be rude not to visit sometime soon to enjoy some winter sun.”

The other syndicate members have a range of plans with the win.

Janice Ginn, 54, plans to finally buy a house after years of renting.

Laura Busby, 33, is looking forward to a family holiday to Florida.

Carol Beal, 54, will be taking her granddaughter to DisneyWorld.

Gary Beal, 32, who is Carol’s son, will be able to get on the property ladder.

As one member said; “Leaving the children at the school will be hard so maybe we will continue to be Lotto winning dinner ladies!”

Comments(17)

hove park seagull says...
1:06pm Fri 4 Jan 13

Brilliant news

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Hove_Factually says...
1:42pm Fri 4 Jan 13

Poor Gary. What is the masculine form of 'dinner lady'?

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Flippin Burghers says...
2:02pm Fri 4 Jan 13

Hove_Factually wrote:
Poor Gary. What is the masculine form of 'dinner lady'?
A dinner dyke?

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bluemonday says...
2:14pm Fri 4 Jan 13

surely in this ridiculously pc world of ours the phrase dinner lady went out with the ark,good luck to them all

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sussexram40 says...
2:30pm Fri 4 Jan 13

Hove_Factually wrote:
Poor Gary. What is the masculine form of 'dinner lady'?
Dinner gentleman.

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MuammarQaddafi says...
2:34pm Fri 4 Jan 13

Hove_Factually wrote:
Poor Gary. What is the masculine form of 'dinner lady'?
Dinner lad.

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MuammarQaddafi says...
2:39pm Fri 4 Jan 13

bluemonday wrote:
surely in this ridiculously pc world of ours the phrase dinner lady went out with the ark,good luck to them all
If people who do the job call themselves dinner ladies, then I for one will call them that until they start calling themselves something else. If it is your work then you should be able to call it whatever you please. And as you say good luck to them all.

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jagiwatch says...
4:21pm Fri 4 Jan 13

Hove_Factually wrote:
Poor Gary. What is the masculine form of 'dinner lady'?
Dinner assistant!

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Brightonian1966 says...
4:47pm Fri 4 Jan 13

Congratulations.I hope you all realise your dreams.

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sussexram40 says...
4:55pm Fri 4 Jan 13

The obvious description is "Dinner Person".

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sussexram40 says...
4:56pm Fri 4 Jan 13

Although dinner is eaten later in the day. In schools what is provided is lunch. So a more correct term would be Lunch Person.

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Mark the cab says...
6:03pm Fri 4 Jan 13

id call him "lucky b******d

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george smith says...
10:23pm Fri 4 Jan 13

How come mum and son both work for the same employer?

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ladybird82 says...
9:03am Sat 5 Jan 13

Good luck to them all! Lovely to have local winners! Hopefully some luck will rub off and Sussex will have a winning streak!

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qm says...
11:25am Sat 5 Jan 13

sussexram40 wrote:
Hove_Factually wrote:
Poor Gary. What is the masculine form of 'dinner lady'?
Dinner gentleman.
Oh thank you Jeeves . . . . .

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katybrightonian says...
12:08pm Sat 5 Jan 13

I went to School with Gary, couldn't of happened to a nicer bloke. Congrats Gaz!

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Ex-MDSA says...
12:47pm Sat 5 Jan 13

They are actually MDMSA - mid day meal supervising assistants

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