One predictable decision often follows news of a substantial lottery win — and Richard and Debbie Nuttall have wasted no time in making it.
This week, it was revealed that the couple from Colne in Lancashire had secured an incredible £61 million share of a £123 million EuroMillions jackpot prize, prompting both to retire from their respective jobs.
Debbie has already submitted her resignation at her civil engineering position, while her accountant husband has informed his clients of his intention to cease work in April, coinciding with the end of the tax year.
With purchases such as new golf clubs, luxurious 1,200-thread-count bed linen, and a £128,000 BMW X5 already under their belt, a life filled with hobbies, cocktails, and leisurely hours by the swimming pool awaits.
And who could blame them? After all, the majority of us fantasize about bidding farewell to the monotonous routines of employment — not to mention the exhilarating prospect of giving our boss a piece of our mind. Indeed, isn’t that tantalizing notion what motivates many of us to purchase a lottery ticket in the first place?
Feet firmly on the ground: Mark and wife Bridget at home today
Mark getting into his van for a day’s work at his glazing firm
However, according to Mark Gardiner, that would be a significant error. And he speaks from experience.
Nearly 30 years ago, he found himself in the spotlight of a ‘big cheque’ presentation ceremony after he and his business partner, Paul Maddison, won a staggering £22,590,829 — the largest jackpot in the then-young history of the National Lottery.
The pair operated a small glazing firm together in Hastings, East Sussex. While Paul promptly announced his decision to resign, Mark took a different approach. “Whether it was nervousness or fear of the unknown, I decided, ‘I’m going to keep working,'” he recollects in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail.
“There was no epiphany. It was more about holding on to what I knew. It was my safety net, and I thought I would take time to determine when I was ready to let it go. Weeks, months, I had no idea.”
As it turned out, that moment never arrived.
Now 61, Mark appears cheerful as we meet for lunch near his home in Battle. Today, he is still frequently seen driving around Hastings in his Croft Glass van, the company he founded four years before that life-altering day in 1995.
Many assume he maintains this lifestyle because, in Mark’s words, he’s “broke,” having squandered his fortune on “fast cars and fast women.”
In reality, while he did indulge in some of the luxuries often associated with a lottery win — including a lavish mansion with a pool, a collection of high-end cars in the garage, a vacation home in Barbados, and even a yacht — he remains financially stable and attributes retaining gainful employment to preserving his mental well-being.
“I’m hands-on. If I weren’t here with you today, I’d be working,” he explains. “But I don’t have to tolerate any nonsense. And if I feel like taking a day off on a sunny day, then I can.”
For a period, Camelot, the lottery operator, capitalized on his level-headedness by inviting Mark to advise subsequent winners.
“I was too candid,” he admits. “People would ask me, ‘Will I have issues with my family?’ and I would respond, ‘Probably.’
“Although much depends on your specific family dynamics and background, of course.”
According to Mark, the reality of winning the lottery often diverges from people’s fantasies.
Some winners have seen their marriages dissolve, family ties rupture, or even found themselves bankrupt within months due to reckless spending and unwise investments. Others openly express a longing to revert to their pre-win lives.
While Mark isn’t among the latter group, he is well-equipped to contemplate the complexities brought by sudden wealth.
“The analogy I like to use is that whatever issues were present in your life before — all those little seeds that were planted — the win waters them all, and they sprout up,” he reflects. “I always tell people that before winning, I had a box of problems, but it was quite small.
“The lottery allowed me to put that box of problems aside, but then someone handed me a much larger box.”
Certainly, in the summer of 1995, the “seeds,” as Mark describes them, of his former life were already vying for attention.
Almost 30 years ago Mark and his business partner Paul Madison, left, scooped a whopping £22,590,829 win — the largest in the National Lottery’s then fledgling history
Paul and his wife Ruth, left, and Mark and his wife Brenda celebrate their winnings
Raised by an adoptive mother, Irene, Mark had tried to reach out to his biological parents just months before his lottery win, only to be rejected out of hand by his birth mum’s new husband.
‘He told me in a phone call that Mum didn’t want to know me then, and didn’t want to know me now either,’ he says. ‘I think only someone who’s been adopted understands how that feels. To this day I still retain hope that that may change.’
Aged just 32, he was also in the throes of divorce from third wife Kim — mother to a now 31-year-old daughter — and ensconced with wife number four Brenda, with whom he had another daughter, now 28.
Then there was his business. ‘We weren’t ever going bankrupt. We had three staff, everyone got paid, we could go to the pub on a Friday,’ Mark recalls.
‘But, like hundreds of other businesses, there were times when there was very little in the bank account.’
That all changed when Mark found the numbers on his and Paul’s joint lottery ticket matched the numbers in the newspaper from the previous night’s draw — and realised that their financial problems were behind him.
What they didn’t know was quite to what extent.
‘Like everyone, we’d drawn up a list of what we’d need when we decided to play the lottery. A house each, clear off the overdraft, get a new van. I think that got us to £500,000, which we would have been very happy with,’ he says.
Instead, they won £22.1million more than that, and Mark said that alongside the elation, there was instant fear.
‘One minute I had £11 and the next minute I had £11 million and, if I’m honest, I was probably frightened. Nothing prepares you for it.
‘Camelot didn’t give us an instruction book, there was no manual, we didn’t go on a course; you’re given it, bang, there you go. It’s fairly overwhelming.’
The begging letters arrived almost immediately.
‘We were getting sacks of mail by the day at Croft Glass,’ he says. ‘Some girls were asking to marry me, enclosing pictures, with a pound in the envelope so I could call them back, which made me laugh.’
There were many other, less welcome letters too. Ex-wives — not to mention ex-girlfriends — came scurrying out the woodwork, claiming they were entitled to their share of his winnings, while other old flames emerged claiming to have borne his love children.
‘It felt like every other letter I opened had “We act on behalf of” as the opening line. They were from family, people I’d worked with, someone who thought I’d nicked their pencil case at school — basically, anybody from the past that felt a grievance,’ he says. ‘It was just so bizarre.’
Even his birth mother’s new husband got in on the act.
‘He never came to me directly, but he gave an interview to the papers in which he claimed I should pay to relocate them as the publicity had been very difficult,’ he says, shaking his head at the memory.
He shakes his head, too, at a well-intentioned gesture that can only be described as backfiring catastrophically.
In a bid to create a protective ‘ring of steel’ around him, Mark bought four of his closest friends a £100,000 house each.
‘It was a way of having a circle of trust,’ he reflects. Except that one by one, they all fell out with him.
‘It was complicated,’ he says. ‘They got called scroungers and were picked on by their friends. You can’t win in some ways. If you keep your money close, you’re tight, if you buy a round in the pub, you’re a flash Harry.’
After a love life that can best be described as ‘chequered’, Mark is now happily married for the fifth time, to Bridget, a former childhood sweetheart who was also — to complicate matters further — wife number one.
They had met by coincidence 20 years after their divorce when Mark turned up to fix her windows. They have just celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary and have an 18-year-old son.
‘I am the happiest now that I’ve ever been and that’s because of Bridget,’ he says.
‘You can’t buy a Bridget. We married too early, we both agreed that, but we knew we were for each other, if that makes sense. And in a way I should apologise to the other women because they were never for me, and in some ways I spent all those other years finding my way back to her.’
Although the lottery didn’t change Mark, he warns it can change the people around you.
That includes his old friend and fellow jackpot winner Paul, who disappeared from Mark’s life after moving to a vast 40-acre estate in a remote part of Scotland, where he lived virtually as a recluse.
When he died at the end of last year, aged 73 — the circumstances remain unknown — there were rumours that he had barely a penny left.
‘I’d be pretty astonished if he didn’t have any money,’ says Mark, who hadn’t spoken to his friend for 28 years when he died, pretty much, in fact, since the day they collected that massive cheque together.
‘Paul was the parsimonious one. In fact, he predicted I would be the one to spend it all, and that if I came begging to him for more he’d turn me down.’
It didn’t come to that, of course, although their friendship was a casualty of their incredible windfall. ‘It was odd,’ he says. ‘We’d worked together every day, we knew each other’s other halves. If we didn’t win the lottery, we would have been having a pint on Friday night. I don’t understand it and now I never will.’
Nor did his money do much to improve his relationships with his now grown-up daughters from whom he is estranged, despite spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on legal fees.
‘I tried everything,’ he says. ‘And all I can say is I have legal files with their names on to show how hard I fought for contact and access and that one day they will read them.’
Not that Mark hasn’t enjoyed the money. Aside from the beautiful house, holiday home and boy’s toys, he has enjoyed the freedom the money has brought him — not to mention the chance to stick it to his old bank manager.
‘The Friday after my win we went food shopping and my card was refused,’ he says. ‘I went mad, and it was all, “Oh, sir, I apologise.” But they’d had their chance, so I closed that account.’
Knowledge that neither he nor his family will ever want for money — unless they are ‘daft’ as he puts it — is also a huge comfort.
But, while overnight wealth may bring great material rewards, it will never, says Mark, be a panacea for all of life’s ills. ‘The advert says “It Could Be You” — but say it goes, “This Could Be You: falling out with your sister; upset with your mum; sued by your ex-fiancee.” Are you going to run out and buy that ticket?’
For all that, he has no regrets. ‘I wouldn’t buy my friends a house, and I would probably have invested in property rather than carry on with Croft Glass,’ he says. ‘But overall I can’t complain.’
Although, as it turns out, he does have one, as yet unfulfilled, wish. ‘I’d love to be on I’m A Celebrity,’ he says. ‘Because even money can’t buy you that.’
