Peter Lavery was a bus driver when he scooped the jackpot, and he spent years celebrating – but he stopped boozing for health reasons and decided to give back to neighbours instead
On a Saturday night in May 1996, bus driver Peter Lavery was having a few drinks and thought his mates were playing a prank on him.
A friend who knew his numbers had called and said he’d won the jackpot. Thinking it was a wind up, Peter went home to bed and didn’t check his numbers until the next morning. But out of 33.3 million people who had bought a ticket that night, only he had the right six numbers, winning over £10.2 million.
In a state of shock, Peter, then 34, single and living with two of his five siblings, put the ticket in his jacket pocket and did a five-hour Sunday shift on the buses, earning about £50. He asked for a day off on Monday to collect his winnings. By Wednesday he had quit his job and was in a five star resort in St Lucia in the Caribbean with ten of his nearest and dearest.
“I always talked about what I’d do if I won the lottery, but I never dreamed it would actually happen,” says Peter, still incredulous nearly 30 years later. The 61-year-old, who grew up in working class Belfast, says: “We’d have those conversations all the time, thinking about what you’d do if you won the lottery. The night I won £10,248,233 there were 33.3 million people playing and I had it. Just unbelievable. It shows how quickly your life can change.”