How a Bag of Broccoli Turned into a Win of £1m for One Lucky Couple

You know how it goes; you’re getting ready to prepare a meal for guests when you suddenly realize you’ve forgotten a key ingredient. You can either have a melt-down, decide to dish up the food and hope nobody notices, or you can pop to the shops. Hayley Parker and her partner Matt Munn decided not to be scrooges and ventured out to the shop. But I bet they never imagined picking up a cool million pounds along with their much-needed Broccoli!

Hayley 30 and Matt 28 were set to host a Christmas meal with a difference; it would be on Christmas Eve instead, what with her working on the big day. As she was preparing the festive roast, she realised she had forgotten the broccoli. This key ingredient was to change her life forever.

Off the pair went to the shops to buy the super veg and whilst there, they decided to buy everyone a scratchcard as a pre-dinner treat. Hayley said, “It was one of those spur of the moment decisions as we were paying for the veg. I’m a midwife and because I was working on Christmas Day we’d decided to celebrate on Christmas Eve instead. Having everyone around the table was a real treat and we were all in high spirits as we handed out the Scratchcards.”

In the Words of Victor Meldrew; I Do Not Believe It!

With broccoli and scratchcards in hand, the busy pair hurried home. It was Hayley who revealed the top prize of £1m on her Merry Millions scratchcard, but, last year, she was the butt of a funny but cruel Christmas prank, which meant she didn’t believe it.

“Last Christmas my stepdad gave me a joke scratchcard which said I’d won£1Million so I thought this lot had done the same thing, but I just couldn’t work out how they could have switched it to give me another joke one. So, I showed it to them saying ‘very funny’ but they all responded with cheers that we’d won big, which of course I just thought was an even bigger wind up!”

Being sceptical, Hayley frog-marched the six members of the syndicate to the shop to see if it was a winning scratchcard. To her amazement, the retailer confirmed she had a winning ticket and that she needed to call Camelot to confirm her win. Back they went to the house where a delighted Hayley put in the call.

Matt said, “We all waited in the lounge while Hayley was making the call. We were so nervous, giggling like school kids, until Hayley ran into the room saying ‘it’s real!’ We all cheered loudly, not believing we’d each received such a life-changing early Christmas present, and then very promptly cracked into the Christmas booze!”

Lucky Seven

In total, there were seven people sharing Hayley’s top prize, each of which bagging £142.858.14. Plans have been made by all lucky members; Hayley and Matt will finish the renovations on their home and share the rest with family. Ben and Holly who are eagerly awaiting the birth of their first child, plan to move to a bigger home and others are planning to splash out on a new car and even a move to Germany.

Hayley said, “It’s certainly made 2019 a Christmas to be remembered for us all, and for me personally, the icing on the cake was that I also delivered my first Christmas Day baby, a healthy little baby girl. I’m not sure how we top this for Christmas 2020!”