Retired farmer from Billingshurst celebrates bumper lottery win

Top of the shopping list for Malcolm Waites and wife Nadine is a new motorhome for the pair and their three dogs, after they won a whopping £169,826.

Malcolm, 65, a retired farmer, always believed he would one day win the lottery - but wife of six years Nadine, 69, never believed him.

He said: “I was always telling Nadine that I’d win the lottery, and she’d always tell me to shut up, she may believe me a bit more in future!

“While I always believed I’d win, I still wasn’t prepared for how I would react.

“I started to shake and tried to call Nadine, who was at obedience training with our dog, Zeus, but her phone was out of battery.

“In the end, rather than pop with excitement I visited our friends, Nina and John, to share the news with them while I waited for Nadine to make contact.”

Malcolm, who has played Lotto since it launched, matched five numbers and the bonus ball in the Lotto draw on Saturday June 20.

He bought the winning ticket on the National Lottery’s website.

The draw followed two smaller wins for Malcolm, who initially assumed it was another small payout when he received an email alerting him to check his online account.

He said: “I was on a winning streak so I thought I’d banked another small win. When I logged on and saw the amount of the win I knew it wasn’t just a winning streak, it was one hell of a lucky streak!”

When Nadine finally called Malcolm, she didn’t believe him and told him not to be so stupid - before he was able to convince her the win was real.

Malcolm said: “We compete in dog obedience classes which means we travel all over the country every weekend to competitions, spending half the year living in our motorhome.

“While our current model serves us well we are planning to upgrade to something a little newer, larger and possibly more luxurious, we are lottery winners after all!”

The rest of the win will be invested for Malcolm and Nadine’s retirement.

He added: “I’ve been lucky in life but not necessarily in the traditional sense, until now. I worked on the family farm from 16 but farming is a tough industry and in 2009, with mounting debt, I finally had to give up the farm in Yorkshire.

“When I came down to East Sussex to manage a herd of dairy cows for a week I was pretty low but luck was smiling because I met Nadine, we fell in love and I never left!

“Now, just as we are tightening the purse strings for retirement, Lady Luck has struck again.”

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