A BARNSLEY dinner lady who has worked at a school for 20 years scooped £1m on the lottery - but has no plans to retire just yet.
Paula Williamson, 59, decided to keep her new-found fortune a secret for more than five weeks as one of her sons was on holiday in Australia.
The only person she told was her husband of 24 years, 68-year-old Geoff, but kept the windfall under wraps in order to tell both their sons - 24-year-old Ian and Jack, 26 - at the same time.
On Tuesday, just 12 hours after her son Jack arrived back on UK soil, Paula revealed her life-changing news.
She said: “I did tell Geoff, because that would have been so hard, to keep the winning news from him, but we both decided we wanted to tell Jack and Ian at the same time.
“There is no way we could have celebrated without our two sons being with us.
“It was tough being in the same house as Ian and keeping it from him but we did it. We just tried to keep ourselves as occupied as possible.
“Celebrating the winning moment is something we wanted to ensure we would remember and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”
On top of waiting more than a month to reveal the news, Paula, who works at The Hill Academy in Thurnscoe, had also been walking around for more than a week - oblivious to the fact that she had the £1m winning ticket sitting in her purse having purchased it from Morrisons at Cortonwood.
She added: “I always buy a EuroMillions ticket, a lucky dip, when I do my weekly shopping and at the same time check my ticket from the previous week.
“When I got to the till to check my ticket this time round the machine made a noise and the shop assistant said I had won more than £500 so she couldn’t pay out.
“I thought I had probably won about £550, nothing like the amount I did win. That would have been a nice deposit for the new three-piece suite I had been dreaming about buying.
“The shop assistant gave me a number to ring so I immediately rushed home and called Camelot. The lady on the phone asked me if I was sitting down and said I had won £1m.
“I couldn’t believe it - I still can’t. The news really is still sinking in. I keep having to pinch myself and tell myself that I really am a millionaire.
“I cannot believe I was walking around for a whole week with £1m in my purse, desperately saving for the new three-piece.”
Top of her shopping list is to buy a house each for bus driver Jack and Ian, a ground worker, who sat alongside their parents at a press conference held by Camelot in Pontefract on Tuesday.
Geoff, a retired long-distance lorry driver, who also has two daughters, Donna and Karen, says an updated Skoda is top of his list of priorities.
The couple, who have five grandchildren between the ages of two and 13, said treating their family is also very important to them and are planning a break abroad in Spain to toast their win.
Paula, who said the family have lived in their Barnsley three-bedroom semi-detached home since 1980, added: “We are not going to rush into anything and we are just going to take time to think.
“This win takes away any money worries and gives us so many options and opportunities.”
