Lottery winner bags dream home

A FORMER school cook from Shiplake, who won £821,000 in the People’s Postcode Lottery, has bought her first home with her husband after 42 years.

Sally Maudlin, 62, scooped two winning tickets, each worth £410,995, when she won in June last year.

The mother of two, who had been playing for six years, began buying two tickets after having a dream about winning three years prior.

She had only won £50 before becoming the sole winner of the RG9 4BX postcode, landing the weekly “Millionaire Street” prize.

Mrs Maudlin and her husband, Murray, 62, a farmer, had longed to buy their own cottage-like home, similar to one in their grandson’s train set.

A year on, they picked up their keys to their semi-detached four-bedroom house in Sonning Common, days before Mr Murray hung up his wellies for an early retirement.

Mrs Maudlin said the win had been her dream but had been incomprehensible.

“It hasn’t hit at all,” she said. “I walk around the beautiful house, garden and kitchen, looking at my most wanted dream of a Rangemaster in racing green and can’t imagine how this is all ours.

“You think you’ve won big when you get £50 on a scratch card but this kind of money is not comprehensible.”

She closed on the red-brick house without a mortgage due to its character. Mrs Maudlin said: “We looked at some new houses but they were straight, white and clinical. I liked an older-style property with a lot of character.

“There was a cottage in Henley but we needed around £2m and we wanted to have enough for Murray to retire early, as he’s worked so hard all his life.” The home has a spare room for her grandson, Joe, 15, who has special needs.

It even overlooks one of the fields where Murray used to work and drive his tractor.

Mrs Maudlin said: “Murray has been driving tractors since he could walk. It’s great that he can see the labour of his hard work. I’m sure he’s looking forward to not having to go but I think he will miss it.”

She had another dream days before the People’s Postcode Lottery rang to tell her about her winnings.

Mrs Maudlin said: “We’d had a big rainstorm and the sun came out afterwards with a huge rainbow. I was upstairs in the back bedroom at the house on the farm in Shiplake and the end of the rainbow looked like it was in the room as if that’s where the pot of gold had landed.”

Mrs Maudlin, who has spinal, neck and shoulder conditions, was able to quit her job, which was taking an additional toll on her physical health.

“It got very difficult,” she said. “I had back surgery so many times and was working on my own in the kitchen. It was too much for me and left me in tears.”

She may have to endure an operation at the top of her neck, as one of her discs is continuing to cause her pain.

Mrs Maudlin and her daughter, Laura, have just returned from a Disney cruise in Spain. 

They look forward to booking the Disney Dream cruise, as well as enjoying trips to the South Coast, such as Southampton and Bournemouth.