Winning a life-switching amount of money can be a aspiration harboured by a lot of, but what's life like when that truly transpires?

"Ray, we've got three quantities!"

Sat in your own home on the Saturday night time, nurse Barbara Wragg experienced switched to the Television to find the National Lottery benefits.

Supplying a operating commentary to her spouse Ray, All those a few matching numbers within the few's ticket quickly became "4", then "5" and after that astoundingly, the magic "6".

Within half one hour, the pair learnt that they had gained the £7.6m jackpot and daily life had modified permanently.


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

"We were caught for how to proceed and what to mention. We were being just flabbergasted."

A man in his eighties sits over a black couch in the living room. He is holding a brass-coloured trophy in The form of the Nationwide Lottery brand
Ray Wragg and spouse Barbara received a Exclusive trophy from lottery organisers for his or her philanthropy

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

The pair sang 'Who would like to be a millionaire' as they referred to as their 3 young children to tell them the information.

"50 % an hour or so later we rang Camelot and we learned we would won £seven.6m that evening," Ray says.

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

He was on account of be again at work on a building web-site in south Wales at 08:00 GMT around the Monday, which would have required the then 62-12 months-aged to leave residence for just a four-hour drive inside the early hrs of the darkish Wintertime early morning.

When Ray told him he had chose to retire, a amazed Dave responded by inquiring him tongue-in-cheek, "Have you ever won the lottery?!"

"Nicely, Of course I've," was Ray's straightforward reply.

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

"I didn't know very well what to convey but I would hardly ever have mentioned 'stuff your work' or nearly anything like that. I am not that sort of man or woman."

Despite the fact that the development marketplace inevitably grew to become "tiring" and involved him travelling around one,000 miles each week to all 4 corners of the united kingdom, Ray states he loved get the job done.

But the prospect of retirement for him and for Barbara, who experienced worked night shifts with the Royal Hallamshire Hospital for 22 yrs, was also superior to overlook.

The first thing Ray did with the winnings was purchase a £fifty two,000 white Array Rover, when the few also went over a glamorous cruise.

Barbara's panic of traveling had Earlier limited them to domestic vacations.

"I believe we went to Torquay for about twenty years about the trot - all five of us," Ray says.

Like most lottery winners, Ray and Barbara took the chance to move on some of their winnings for their children along with other family members.

But it absolutely was their generosity to other people exterior their household device which would make headlines from the many years that followed.

They reportedly gave away most of their winnings - earning a rebuke from their economic advisor.


PA A few wearing crimson and white Sheffield United shirts maintain champagne flutes bearing the Nationwide Lottery brand aloft. A football 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 in the age of 77, after publicly claimed their winnings had been "excessive for two folks".

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

"But we were inside our sixties (at enough time) and we manufactured a great deal of people happy."

Tens of thousands was supplied absent on the clinic where by Barbara had worked, in addition to to the neighborhood children's clinic.

There was also £12,000 to permit Environment War Two veterans to return to Monte Cassino in Italy in 2004, sixty many years just after Allied Forces gained an important victory there.

The few were being left touched by a several of the correspondence they acquired afterwards, which integrated letters from widows of troopers who had died within the battlefield.


A person in his eighties sits on the black sofa in a family room. He is Keeping a black coffee mug. A lampshade is in the history.
Ray claims the lottery altered his and Barbara's life, although not them as individuals
A further act of philanthropy stands out in Ray's thoughts.

"We picked up the Sheffield Star newspaper a person night, plus a younger lad of 11 or 12 had saved his cash up to acquire a motorbike," he remembers.

"He'd absent in to the park and these three lads experienced operate off with it and still left him, the very poor lad."

The Wraggs had a mountain bicycle they'd hardly employed and so referred to as up the Star to create luckyvip77 connection with the boy's family so they could give it to him.

"You can not purchase the expression on his facial area," Ray claims. "He was leaping up and down for joy and Driving up and down, as you'll in case you had been A child."

The couple's charity work acquired them a Unique trophy from Camelot in 2002, and invitations to Buckingham Palace as well as Satisfaction of Britain awards.

They rubbed shoulders with Richard Branson, Princess Diana's previous butler and also the Coronation Road Forged, but Ainsley Harriott stands out in Ray's thoughts as on the list of "nicest" celebs the few achieved.


Sheffield United fan Ray nevertheless goes swimming at his community leisure centre a few early mornings a week and he continues to be a Bramall Lane regular in the weekends.

He insists he's by no means had any trouble from people because that huge gain 25 a long time ago.

"All they have wished to do when they us in the road is rub our shoulder for a little bit of luck and thank us for what we have accomplished for the kids.

"We've experienced an incredible time and aided a great deal of men and women," he smiles.

Ray says he and Barbara remembered their roots and might have remained joyful folks even experienced they not received the lottery.

"I was Performing, Barbara was Operating, the children have been working," he states. "We ended up all ideal.

"Like other people do, we saved up.

"It modified our lives although not us as persons.

"That's stood us in great stead. I nonetheless have a look at the price of a set of socks you know!"

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