Man who quit delivery job after £5.2 million lottery win returns to former workplace
Gary MacDonald delivered parcels to stores across Lakeside Shopping Centre in Essex for more than 30 years
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A delivery driver who scooped £5.2m on the lottery has returned to his former workplace to surprise old colleagues with bouquets of flowers and Lotto lucky dip tickets.
Gary MacDonald, 61, who left his job after the life-changing win last year, had made a promise to himself to return to the place where he worked for over three decades to share his good fortune.
Mr MacDonald had spent more than 30 years delivering parcels to stores across Lakeside Shopping Centre in Thurrock, Essex, until his win last year.
Since then, he has married his long-term partner Anita and moved from Barking, east London, to settle into a new four-bedroom detached home in Essex.
“It’s been a crazy 12 months, from discovering I’d won a £5.2m Lotto jackpot and starring in the Lotto TV ad, to getting married and moving house,” he said.
“It’s a good job I retired early – being a Lotto millionaire is turning out to be a full-time occupation!
“That said, I’m delighted to come out of retirement for the day to fulfil the promise I made myself.
“It’s been great surprising my old colleagues, their faces have been a picture. I think we’ve done a brilliant job of surprising them and spreading the joy with today’s deliveries.”
Donna Samuels, manager of the Babyeze shop at Lakeside, said it was an “incredible surprise” to see Mr MacDonald again.
“He absolutely didn’t need to do this, but I’m so touched that he has,” she said.
“Then again, Gary sharing the joy is typical of him, just goes to show what a diamond he is.
“For as long as I can remember, Gary was here every day, rain or shine, with a joke and a smile, so when he suddenly wasn’t there one day last year, I worried there was something wrong.
“I was over the moon when I discovered the real reason. Winning on the National Lottery honestly couldn’t have happened to a nicer chap.”
Mr MacDonald said that in his previous job as a delivery driver, his alarm would go off at 5.30am each day.
“I’ve always taken great pride in doing a job well and that’s what I did all those years at Lakeside, but what really made it was the many people I’d see daily,” he said.
“With a friendly wave, a few words, or on a rare occasion, a cup of tea, we built connections, so when I hit the Lotto jackpot, those people who had been such a part of my daily working life were always in my plans.
If I'd won £5.2 million on the lotto I'd have returned to work with £1k cash each for all my colleagues, as well as the flowers. I wouldn't have bought a detached house in Essex either. I'd have purchased a cottage in the middle of the countryside with a low crime rate, probably somewhere in Wales, given my family and close friends a big chunk, given some to charity, bought solar panels, a battery and heat pump and then put the rest into individual high interest rate fixed accounts, with the interest paying for my retirement. Everyone's different but that would be my dream. At least the bloke returned to work to say hello to his colleagues and bought them some lovely flowers, so at least that's something.
“It’s taken a while to get back here, but looking at the happy faces and the laughter, it’s been worth the wait.
“The only problem, my fabulous wife Anita has used the opportunity for a little bit of a shopping spree!”
Mr MacDonald previously said that his first purchase after his lottery win was a Shark vacuum cleaner.
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