Scottish Couple David And Carol Martin Win 33M

13 January 2016, 12:10 | Updated: 30 March 2016, 13:50

A husband and wife are planning an early retirement after scooping £33 million on the lottery, half of the UK's biggest ever Lotto jackpot.

David and Carol Martin, both 54, from Hawick in the Scottish Borders, are celebrating scooping the prize after matching six correct numbers in Saturday's record draw.

The massive jackpot of just over £66 million was the result of 14 rollovers.

New rules stipulated that once the amount went over £50 million it would have been shared between the next tier down of winners if no one matched all six numbers. The other ticket remains unclaimed.

The couple had been relaxing at home, "completely unaware'' that the Lotto ticket on their mantelpiece held the winning numbers until a visit from a friend who urged them to check it.

Mr Martin, who works for Borders Care and Repair which helps elderly and disabled fit equipment in their homes, said: "My mate Keith had popped over for a chat on Sunday morning when he mentioned that there had been two Lotto winners in the big rollover the night before.

"I hadn't checked my ticket, so I removed it from the mantelpiece and thought I'd take a quick look but for some reason we couldn't find the results in the paper.

"After Keith had left, Carol and I were tucking into bacon and black pudding rolls when we decided to check the ticket against the results on her phone.

"I had three lines, all Lucky Dip tickets, and as Carol called out the numbers, I realised that the first line matched up one by one. We must have checked it another ten times or more.

He added: "I've dreamt of this moment many times but when it actually came, it was a just total shock.

"We were both stunned into silence. We kept re-checking the numbers as we thought there must be a mistake.

"Then we called Camelot to see if it could possibly be true. The lady at the end of the phone was really nice and told us we were right, we were winners.

"All we could do was drink lots of hot tea and try and make sense of it all. The information just wasn't going in.''

The first person to be told the news was the couple's 26-year-old daughter Lisa, who lives in Australia.

Mr Martin said: "We caught Lisa on the telephone as she was driving to work and told her to pull over.

"She thought something bad had happened as we normally only Skype or WhatsApp her to keep the costs down. So, when we telephoned she was really worried.

"Then we told her we've just won 68 million in Australian dollars. She couldn't believe it and thought we were pulling her leg.''

The family have not been together for more than a year but the couple have offered to pay the plane fare home as soon as Lisa can arrange it.

The family said they hoped to be reunited at the weekend so that they can begin planning their futures.

Mrs Martin, who works in a local chemist, said: ``Lisa loves it out in Australia and has been trying to gain residency over there.

"She's been in Australia for more than five years and we last saw her at Christmas 2014.

"We can't wait to see her again.

"With all this going on, it doesn't seem right not to be together.''