What A Lotto Luck!
Last Updated: Friday 28th February 2014, 16:59
Friday the 13th may not be viewed as the luckiest day of the year for most people, but it was certainly favourable for UK National Lottery players Irene and Ronald Jones, who scooped a £9.3 million half-share of the recent triple rollover Lotto jackpot with a ticket they purchased that day.
It wasn't lucky all day long, however. Earlier, the retired couple from Bilston had seen a mirror fall from their living room wall and smash on the floor. According to superstition, that alone should have brought seven years of bad luck. But it didn't stop optimists Irene and Ronald from going out to buy their Lotto ticket.
Although the couple were together when they checked their numbers and could rely on each other to verify the win, they still found the good news hard to accept. In fact, they had to telephone their daughter for a third opinion!
"I was watching the television when I suddenly thought I'd better check our numbers," Irene explained. "Ronald put Teletext on and we sat there counting the six winning numbers - again and again - we just could not believe it. I then phoned my daughter Lynn to tell her and ask her to come around to check the ticket, but it was late and she said she'd pop round in the morning."
Would you be patient enough to wait for a third opinion? Probably not, and neither was Irene…
"The next morning I couldn't wait for Lynn so I phoned Camelot before she had arrived," she said. " Now I'm just wondering how to spend the money. The one thing for sure is that we are going to take our time and ensure all our loved ones are taken care of."
One thing that the couple have already decided to invest in is a new dream bungalow. This is something they have wanted for many years, and now, thanks to a great stroke of good luck on Friday 13th, it's something they can obtain with ease.
Talking about the subject of superstition and the events of that day, Irene says, "The funniest thing about it all is that I bought the ticket on Friday 13th, after the mirror in the living room had fallen off the wall and smashed into a million pieces. We have been playing with the same numbers since the lottery began - as we are quite superstitious - but after recent events I am going to be less so, as our luck has definitely changed for the better."
