A father of three whose back injury at the age of 31 forced him to give up work and sell the family home last year has become a Lottery millionaire.
Former carer Barry Little, 33, and trainee hairdresser wife Roberta, 32, from Dumfries, have toasted the New Year with a £1m EuroMillions win.
In late 2010, Mr Little had to take early retirement after injuring his back at work. He struggled to meet mortgage repayments and had to resell the family home back to Dumfries and Galloway council in May last year.
Since then the family have depended on Mrs Little securing a placement in a local salon to help look after Nicole, 14, Reegan, 12, and Malachi, 6.
Today, as they unveiled their prize, Mr Little recalled the moment he discovered they had won in the special draw on 1 January that promised to make 25 UK millionaires.
“I had stayed up late on New Year’s night to watch TV. It wasn’t until 2am on January 2 that I remembered I had bought a Lucky Dip online, so I checked my numbers.
“I noticed straight away from the list of raffle codes that mine was there. Like most people I am sure, I thought this can’t be right. This kind of thing doesn’t happen to me, so I woke my wife to get her to check them for me.
“Once Roberta confirmed we’d won, we spent the next six hours going over and over the code to make sure we weren’t mistaken. We wanted to let the children sleep, so we waited until 7am to tell them the news. As soon as the clock hit 8am we called Camelot to verify our ticket.
“This could not have come at a better time for me and my family. We’ve had such a tough year and this win has really lifted our spirits.”
When asked what his first big purchase would be, Mr Little said: “A 3D television so that I can see the text on Sky. I am bedbound quite a lot of the time and the TV we have at the moment is quite small and it’s difficult for me to read the updates on Sky Sports.
“The next thing I want to do is to take my wife and kids on a holiday to get our heads around what’s happened to us. We’ve not been on a family holiday in years so they’re due a nice break. I haven’t a clue where we’ll be going, but it will definitely be somewhere warm.”
A big Grand Prix fan, he is also planning on taking his family to the British Grand Prix in Silverstone in June this year.
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