
LONDON (AFP) - A Scottish woman said Wednesday she was left speechless after learning she had scooped the EuroMillions lottery jackpot of 35.4 million pounds.
"I couldn't really say anything. I just pushed my head back then put my head down. I was so flabbergasted," said Angela Kelly, 40, recounting the moment that she checked her ticket at work on Monday.
The postal worker, from East Kilbride, near the western Scottish city of Glasgow, said her hands were shaking as she got work colleagues to double check whether she had not made a mistake.
She then told her son John, 14, by telephone: "We've had a wee win in the lottery."
The windfall -- still only the ninth-biggest payout won by a single person in the nine-country lottery that has been operating since 2004 -- catapults Kelly to top of Britain's rich list of individual lottery winners.
The 35,425,412-pound jackpot means that she will earn her current wage of 21,000 pounds per year every week after tax, said a spokeswoman for Camelot, which operates the British arm of the European lottery.
Kelly, who told a news conference that the win had not yet sunk in, bought a lucky dip ticket for one pound 50 pence for Friday's draw at a supermarket near her home.
She told reporters she had not decided how to spend the cash although her teenage son had already begun compiling a growing list of computer games and equipment.
But she said she may buy a new car and was planning to upgrade her airline ticket to first class when she visits relatives in Canada.
She said she had also had her first nail manicure and was pondering donations to a number of charities.
Kelly, who has worked at the same mail centre since she was 16, has been separated from her husband Gerry, also a Royal Mail worker, for eight years.
She said their split had been amicable and he was "over the moon" at her win. There had been no discussion whether she would give him a share of the winnings, but she said she was "happy" to give him some of the money.
The previous British individual lottery win record holder was Marion Richardson, from Gateshead, north-east England, who won 16.7 million pounds on the EuroMillions draw in April 2004.
The biggest EuroMillions jackpot to date was 77 million pounds, which was won by mother-of-six Dolores McNamara, of Limerick, Ireland, in July 2005.
Kelly's win -- at odds of 76 million to one -- came after the draw "rolled over" three times.
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