What would you do with R905 million?

I know one thing – I wouldn’t be covering stories from the Daily Mail. But unlike Fred and Lesley Higgins, I didn’t win the EuroMillions this week, so here goes.

The retired Scottish couple won their bounty in the EuroMillions jackpot over the weekend and almost lost it on the same day.

Here’s the Daily Mail:

Fred and Lesley Higgins’ slip was ripped in half and chucked in the bin at their local shop when staff mistook it for another set of losing numbers.

A regular Tuesday and Friday player, Mr Higgins, 67, had asked assistant Sean Grant to run them through the machine in case of a winner.

Having scanned the ticket and thrown it away, the machine then beeped to inform Mr Higgins that he should contact Camelot, forcing the red-face assistant to retrieve the numbers from the bin.

Nice to see how the money hasn’t changed Fred, and he’s still necking the good stuff straight out the bottle:

The couple were told that the torn ticket might cause issues, but the national lottery took a look at some CCTV footage and cleared the whole thing up. The Higgins’ plan on retiring in Barbados where they’re going to buy their dream home.

Here’s how Fred described the moment he found out the money was in the bag:

‘Lesley was snoozing so I thought I would look at the website to double-check the numbers and sure enough, the first matched, then the second matched, match, match – we had them all!

‘When Lesley woke, I explained we had a winning ticket and what had happened.

‘I showed her the numbers, asked her to check and she misread them, thinking we were £5.7 million richer rather than an amazing £57 million.

‘I felt really calm at that point – I think it was just sinking in – so I then called Camelot and explained what had happened.’

Mr Higgins went on: ‘I wasn’t ever concerned that we wouldn’t get the money as I knew it was a honest mistake – it just had to be looked at to make sure everything was correct.’

It was, and now Fred and Lesley are filthy-stinkin’ rich.

[source:dailymail]