Lottery winners hid lucky ticket inside a LANTERN while they went away on holiday for two weeks
Family is third Scottish winner this year
A COUPLE who scooped almost £15 million on the Lottery hid the winning ticket in a LAMP while they jetted off on holiday for two weeks before cashing it in.
Alison and John Doherty, from Elderslie in Renfrewshire, Scotland, found out they had won £14,671,343 in the Lotto draw on Saturday, July 2 but still headed off on a pre-booked family holiday to Florida the next day.
They hung on to their ticket and waited two weeks until they returned to have their win validated.
Mrs Doherty, 50, said: "My iPad was lying on the table so I decided I better check my ticket. When the first three numbers matched I actually thought 'Oh good I've won £25'. Then the fourth number matched, and the fifth.
"When I realised I had all six numbers, I couldn't believe it. I was screaming, lying on the floor, shaking like a leaf - just in complete shock."
She then called her husband, 52, who has his own plumbing business, to come home from work and she broke the good news.
She added: "He made me get on the phone to Camelot straight away. Waiting for the winner adviser to call me back was the longest hour of my life. When they did I was screaming again when the phone rang."
Rather than take the precious piece of paper abroad with them, Mrs Doherty decided to hide it at home.
She said: "I put the original ticket inside a hurricane lantern candle holder I have in my bedroom. I also made a photocopy and hid that in the box that John keeps his work boots in, just in case. I wasn't taking any chances."
The long-planned Florida visit was to celebrate their silver wedding anniversary - the couple met when they were teenagers when he drove an ice cream van and she worked at the counter.
The family shared a room on the trip but they all struggled to sleep thinking about their hidden ticket.
The Formula 1 fans now hope to be able to take in a Grand Prix, and are also planning to buy a new house.
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The couple's daughter Laura, 11, told her parents she "wants a goldfish", but their son, psychology student Ryan, 20, has his eye on an Audi or BMW car.
She said the family celebrated with Domino's pizza and Prosecco.
They bought their ticket from the Nisa store on Main Street, Elderslie, with the winning numbers: 3, 9, 16, 19, 24 and 43.
Mrs Doherty said she had not planned on buying a Lottery ticket but popped out for milk and saw the man ahead of her in the queue had bought two Lucky Dips, so she decided to do the same.
The man offered to let her go first but she declined, leading her to the winning ticket.
Mr Doherty, who runs JDPS Plumbers, said he is not planning to give up work yet.
He said: "I enjoy my work, I've done it for 33 years and I've got a lot of customers that I'm loyal to. I was out working yesterday and I'll be out working tomorrow. It's quite hard to give up."
The couple will become Scotland's latest lottery millionaires after John Bowman, from Forfar in Angus, won £10.3 million in April.
He initially thought he had won £10,000 on the lottery and was ''gobsmacked'' when he realised he had won 1,000 times that amount.
John, 59, known as Jake, announced in his Forfar local that he’d scooped the life-changing fortune – and the town’s rumour mill was sent into overdrive when he reportedly jacked in his job.
Earlier in the year, David and Carol Martin, from Hawick in the Scottish Borders, claimed half of a historic £66 million lottery jackpot.
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