Post office worker Angela Kelly was unveiled today as the lucky lady who scooped the UK's biggest ever lottery win of £35Million. While I am really pleased for her my heart went out to her as well: The 40 year old single mum from Scotland was clearly still in shock as she was rolled out to the world's press at a glitzy press conference. She says that she doesn't know how to keep her feet on the ground but also says that she wants to stay in the same flat because her son is about to go into his fourth year in school and he wants to stay near his friends. The truth of the matter is that their lives will change forever.
The very fact that she has decided to go public is worrying. She is clearly unprepared for this kind of media attention and when that has died down she will be prey to all sorts of other attention. I feel sorry for her as she comes to terms with the enormity of her win as she will never be able to rest easy about peoples' motivations in future.
The enormity of the prize is something else that concerns me. Winning amounts like this borders on obscene. I know the lottery donates hugely to charitable causes but surely it would be better to chop up wins like this between runners up. These rollovers are creating massive pots that ordinary people wouldn't have any idea how to cope with. Frighteningly Angela Kelly will make as much in interest in 2 days as she would have earnt in a year on her salary.
I hope that Camelot (who run the lottery) will be able to give her top line support and professional advice - she will need it.
Angela's story seems it's lifted staright out of a fairytale story book. The 40-year-old mother's win couldn't have come at a better time. Kelly says that she was all in the red. I hope Kelly will manage to stay clear of crooks and cheats who will try to lure her into all sorts of investment schemes. I urge investment professionals and banks to come to the rescue of this postal woker and help her put her money to good use.
Posted by: shalini | August 16, 2007 at 01:54 PM