£35m lottery winner 'flabbergasted'

12 April 2012

The woman who has scooped the UK's largest lottery win said she was so "flabbergasted" she couldn't speak when she realised she had the winning ticket.

Angela Kelly, who is 40 and lives with her 14-year-old son in a modest flat in East Kilbride, did not realise she had won the £35.4 million jackpot until Monday.

The ticket was in her handbag and she only checked it at work when she realised the EuroMillions jackpot had gone unclaimed.

"I couldn't believe it when the numbers were there in a row," she said on Wednesday.

She asked her colleagues at the Royal Mail sorting office where she works to check the numbers because she could not believe she might have won.

"I couldn't even say anything, I just pushed my chair back and put my head between my knees, I was so flabbergasted," she said.

The win has catapulted Mrs Kelly, who worked in an administration department according to reports, straight to the top of the National Lottery's rich list.

Friday's jackpot is more than £17 million higher than the previous British EuroMillions record.

The UK's first - and previous biggest - EuroMillions jackpot was won by Marion Richardson from Gateshead, who scooped £16,752,144.80 in April 2004.

The biggest EuroMillions jackpot to date was £77 million, which was won by mother-of-six Dolores McNamara, of Limerick, Ireland, in July 2005.

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