Gran in £142k Postcode Lottery win – 60 years after winning £3.1k home

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A gran has bagged £142,857 on the Postcode Lottery – 60 years after winning her home. Pamela Hiscocks, 79, and husband Anthony, 82, won the three-bedroom bungalow in a competition run by developers who built the new estate in the 1960s.

Now the semi’s postcode has landed the couple a huge windfall – worth 45 times the house’s original £3,175 purchase price.

The mother-of-one said: “We’ve been lucky in the past, but this is just amazing. I can’t take it in. That’s big money. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d win that money. It’s so exciting.”

“It’s not real. I’m flabbergasted and gobsmacked,” added Anthony.

The Hiscocks shared a £1m pot with six other neighbours in the market town of Melksham after SN12 7HB landed the lottery’s weekly Millionaire Street prize on Saturday. It follows an identical win in Meir earlier this month.

Every ticket was worth £142,857. The couple told how they have landed big prizes before, including their home and the football pools – but this has topped it, reports The Mirror.

Anthony said: “This was a brand-new estate built by a company and the first 60 buyers had the chance to win their house in a competition. We had to write a slogan to advertise selling the houses. Mine was ‘choose your plot and win the lot’, and it won. The house was worth £3,175 or something like that, but that was three years’ wages in those days.”

The retired brewery engineer added: “Then I won the pools with a syndicate of 13 at work. It was £200,000 odd between us.”

Now family-focussed Pam is determined to share her good fortune with their son, daughter-in-law and three grandchildren.

Pam said: “We’ll spend the winnings on family. It’s family first, always family first. I always want to make sure my family are alright.”

She also told how her granddaughter Amy, 26 – who had just returned from her hen party in Portugal’s Algarve the day before the big win – was due to tie the knot. Pam said: “What a wedding we’re going to have. It would be nice to be able to treat my granddaughter and her boyfriend.”

Anthony added: “Amy said she wanted a cheque for her wedding. We might be able to put a couple of noughts on it now. We’ll see the grandchildren OK. It’s nice to win something that’s enough to make a difference, rather than just to have a drink with.” Pam will mark her milestone 80th birthday in May before Amy’s wedding in August. Then she and Anthony will have their 60th wedding anniversary two months later in October.

Pam, surrounded by her family, said: “We can pay for everyone to have a once-in-a-lifetime holiday. I’d like a cruise.” The former mental health worker and dinner lady added: “I’ll have a summer house, so I can sit out in the evening and watch the world go by.”

Daughter-in-law Donna, 54, said the windfall couldn’t have gone to a better person.

She said: “She’s always spoiling other people, so it’s lovely that she’s getting this. We’re going to be celebrating their anniversary a bit more in style now. We’ll think of some things you’d like to spend it on, don’t worry.”

But Pam was also delighted for close friend and neighbour Lesley Rose and her husband Philip, who live in the bungalow opposite.

She said: “It’s lovely winning with a friend. We’re so close and such good friends. It’s just nice that we can share it together. I’d feel terrible if I’d won and she hadn’t, and she would be the same with me. They’re just lovely people.”

Courageous grandmother Lesley, 77, who has incurable cancer, matched her friend’s £142,857 win and said it’s “just unbelievable” after years of heartbreak. Lesley fought back tears as she clutched her six-figure cheque, with husband Philip, 79, proudly by her side. After enduring gruelling chemotherapy and radiotherapy and the devastating diagnosis, the plucky gran-of-four says her luck has finally turned.

Lesley told how her lung and kidney cancer is incurable – but doctors are helping to give her more time. And now, she’s looking forward to a brand-new kitchen, a holiday and treating her loved ones. She said: “It’s just unbelievable. I never, in all my dreams, thought I’d win that much money. It’s the first bit of luck we’ve had for a long time. I still have got cancer. Doctors told me they can’t cure me, but they can give me time. After everything, for this to happen is just fantastic.”

Lesley’s nightmare began with what seemed like a freak accident in her garden. She said: “I fell backwards onto a concrete lion statue and smashed it on the ground. I broke four ribs. Really injured myself.”

After the fall, doctors scanned Lesley’s chest for injuries and discovered she had cancer. She already knew she had a small kidney carcinoma that hadn’t grown – but this was different. Lesley said: “I had four lots of chemo. Then they made a mask over my face, and I had 13 lots of radiotherapy. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday… then off for the weekend and back again. You deal with it, you know. You learn to live.”

Stoic Lesley added: “They told me it was cancer and it was incurable. They were going to give me this treatment and just see how I went…maybe slow it down or stop it for a while. At the moment, it’s totally inactive… it’s not been active now for eight months.”

The illness has taken its toll on Lesley’s overall health. She said: “It affects my breathing. I’ve also had to have four operations on each foot…not had the best of luck really.” Philip added: “It’s all changing now.”

Lesley also thanked healthcare workers who cared for her during treatment at three local hospitals. She said: “At first it just was sheer luck that by having a fall in the garden, they then found the cancer. The doctors and nurses are amazing and I’ve spent a lot of time at the new cancer unit which is just a fantastic place. So far, they’ve given me time and that’s all I can really ask for.”

Through it all, Lesley’s family has been her rock. Philip, their two children and four grandchildren have stood by her every step of the way. Philip said: “We don’t know what we’d do without our kids.”

Lesley added: “We love them to bits. That’s what we live for really – our family.” Now Lesley’s planning how to spend her cash – starting with a brand-new kitchen.

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