A GRANDMOTHER who was confident she’d bagged a £34million lotto win, skipped along to claim her prize – but things quickly fell apart once she arrived.
Margaret De Micheli was overjoyed when her local post office handed her a ticket saying she’d won something on the lotto.
She’d bought a ticket for a draw which came with an enormous £34million jackpot prize and Margaret was sure she was in the money.
But, when the gobsmacked nan double checked her numbers at a nearby Tesco in Swiss Cottage, North London, all her dreams turned to dust.
The member of staff said her ticket didn’t have the winning digits – and the National Lottery confirmed she was given the slip by mistake.
Devastated Margaret has revealed what her life is like after her near-win – as she mourned what might have happened.
Instead of sunning it up on a holiday in Italy and buying a swanky new flat by the seaside, Margaret and her parking warden husband are still living in their damp and mouldy flat.
She told The Sun at the time: “We’re back to normal. My husband is back at work, I wanted to win something so he could afford to retire.
“He’s weary – he gets up early in the morning. He usually gets up at 3.30am – he starts at 5am sometimes. He’s amazing, I couldn’t do that job.
“My aim is still for him to retire from work. That’s my main goal.
“It’s why I still do the lottery, I do the Set For Life, the normal lotto and the EuroMillions. I did the EuroMillions today.”
Margaret said returning to her damp and mouldy flat in London was crushing.
She said: “We’d like to be able to move out of the flat. It’s due for refurbishment this year, they’re putting new windows.
“It’s very, very hard. We would like to move out of the flat to somewhere by the seaside.
“I think Poole in Dorset is somewhere my husband would like to go.”
“I’ve managed to brush all the mould off the windows now.
“The windows above us all have mould – there’s no protection against the elements.”
But, despite her devastating loss, Margaret is still hopeful that she’ll win one day.
“I wasn’t expecting millions, maybe £25,000 or something like that,” she said.
“It was a disappointment, but you get back into it. No crying over spilt milk.
“I know my turn will come.”
By James Halpin
Toni Henderson, 32, said that she initially thought she won only a tiny fraction of the cash after not checking her ticket properly.
The County Durham woman said: “On the odd Saturday I might buy some Lucky Dips on Lotto, which is exactly what I did that afternoon. I didn’t do anything with them until I woke up at eight the next morning and thought I would have a look.”
“I checked one of the lines and realised I had some of the numbers. I originally thought I had matched five numbers, which was £1,700 and I was buzzing that I’d won that – it was extra money I didn’t have.
“But when I logged into my online account it came along the top that I had won £1m. I sat there counting the zeros, shaking in bed, whilst my son was still asleep.”
Toni said she had been living payday to payday and with her rent having just gone up, she was struggling to pay the bills.
“The win will help me massively – I have so much freedom now and I feel a lot more independent. It gives my son the start he deserves and I want the money to last for our future.
“To be honest, I feel a bit guilty for spending it as I haven’t earned it. I am so unbelievably grateful but it’s going to take a lot of time to sink in.”
Toni then jokingly brushed off amount of money as being “just a bit of pocket change”
Margaret isn’t alone in being the only unlucky player to nearly miss out on a sizeable win.
Joanne Jobson, from Hartlepool in County Durham, was left in shock after landing a whopping windfall.
But after logging onto the app, she nearly missed the huge jackpot as she thought it was too good to be true.
The 51-year-old said: “I logged onto my account and couldn’t believe what I was reading.
“I had to re-read the message several times as I thought it was telling me what ‘I could win’, not what I had ‘actually won’. I jumped out of bed and went to tell my mum.”
But her shocked mum told Joanne it was a scam.
Similarly, Dion Davies, from Wales, had forgotten all about the ticket he’d bought on a whim during a work trip.
It comes as a lotto winner told how he will never play again after he was made to feel like a criminal and forced to wait weeks to get his cash.
Paul Simpson, from Leicester, was thrilled to win £800 from a HotPicks ticket – before spending weeks chasing down his prize.
It comes after what could be the world’s luckiest lottery shop had its third big win in six months.
The fortunate store sold the £844,591 winning ticket in Sunday’s Daily Million draw and recently sold £63,335 across three scratchcards to one person and £12,668 to another.
