Couple who live in £600,000 Cotswolds home become Britain’s biggest-EVER EuroMillions winners

A couple who live in a £600,000 Cotswolds home with ponies and chickens have become Britain’s biggest-ever EuroMillions winners after landing a £184million jackpot – as they say they went public because they ‘couldn’t make others keep the secret’.

Joe and Jess Thwaite, a couple from just outside Gloucester in their 40s, won the record-breaking £184,262,899 jackpot with a Lucky Dip ticket on May 10.

The couple, who have been married for 11 years, said they wanted to go public at hotel in Cheltenham this morning as they did not want to put the ‘burden’ of keeping the secret on others. 

Joe is a communications sales engineer, while Jess manages the business side of a hairdressing salon she runs with her mother Caroline and sister Rebecca in the affluent riverside town of Tewkesbury. 

They have eight-year-old twins together, while Mr Thwaite has two children currently at university from a previous marriage.

Only months ago the couple purchased their new £600,000 home, but said today that their priority is ‘DIY’ jobs around their property, but admitted their two children have ‘always talked about going to Hawaii’.

The house features four bedrooms, a kitchen and breakfast room and lounge area fitted with a fireplace with oak beam mantle and a log burning stove that leads to the garden

At a press conference with television presenter Dermot O’Leary this morning, the couple said their financial situation is ‘not horrendous’, but the cost of living crisis has ‘affected our lives’, adding that they own a lot of animals such as ponies, geckos, chickens and dogs.

Jess said: ‘We have too many things, we’re too busy. We just want to create that kind of lifestyle for our children.

‘We’re right at the bottom because we’ve pushed everything to get this house, and to have our ponies at home and that’s been our dream.’

She added: ‘I’m not saying that it’s horrendous, we love our life, this is what we’ve chosen.’

Joe, 49, admitted that he saw the winning numbers via the National Lottery app as his wife lay asleep and did not wake her – but instead started browsing for properties.

He added: ‘I looked it up and saw we’d won. I saw how much and I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t go back to sleep.

‘I didn’t want to wake Jess up so I just laid there for what seemed like forever. I spent some time searching for property with no budget limit, which was a novelty!’

Mr Thwaite said he ‘got up to about £7 million’ before he stopped himself from continuing.

Joe, who is a communications sales engineer, said he has already handed in his notice, but had worked up until yesterday.

Jess is his second wife. He was previously married to Sara Frost, 50, from Solihull, but she has since remarried.

Joe and Sara had two children together, who are both now at university and live with their mother.

However, on the same day as her ex-husband won the huge jackpot, it emerged Mrs Attwood is being made to move out of her rented home because the owner wants to sell up, neighbours said today.

They now hope she will be able to buy it and stay living there.

One local said: ‘She’s a lovely lady, always nice to talk to, and she rents the middle house of the terrace and lives there with her son and daughter.

‘She’s been upset at having to move in October because the current owner wants to sell it. She’d like to stay in the house as she’s been there for about three years.

‘Perhaps now she’ll be able to make the owner an offer they can’t refuse if her ex-husband gives her a share of his new fortune.

‘We’d all like her to stay being a neighbour.

‘She drives a small red Ford Fiesta normally but maybe she’ll now turn up in a Ferrari!’

Addressing what he had told his ex-wife about their win, Mr Thwaite said: ‘Of course, I had to let her know about this.

‘I spoke to her and she’s over the moon for us.

‘I had a long call with her – because obviously putting the children through university… she was over the moon, absolutely over the moon for them and what this can mean for the children going forwards.

‘But yes, obviously we keep in contact and we had a good chat.’ 

Mr Thwaite’s wife Jess, meanwhile, manages the business side of a hairdressing salon she runs with her sister in Tewkesbury. 

She said she is unsure about leaving the role, adding that it will be a ‘full-time job just managing all of this for quite some time’.

But the salon was closed today, with an A4 piece of paper stuck on the entrance stating: ‘We have had to close the salon until Monday May 23. 

‘We are so, so sorry for any inconvenience this will cause as we hate to let our wonderful clients down!  Thank you for your understanding and support!’

Jess was born in South Africa to English parents, but her father Anthony died around seven years ago. Her mother Caroline and sister now both live close to her in Gloucestershire.

She also revealed today how her mother believed she was about to inform her she was pregnant when they met up in a car park to inform her of the lottery win.

But she instead told her mother: ‘It’s better than being pregnant!’

Jess, 44, added: ‘She just literally screamed in the car park and burst into tears because even though it’s wonderful and exciting. It’s also a massive relief for everybody that’s been struggling with all their bills and all their things for all this time.’

The couple said they wanted to go public and they did not want to put the ‘burden’ of keeping the secret on others.

Mr Thwaite added that it would be impossible to take someone on an ‘amazing holiday’ without disclosing where they got the money from.

The jackpot record was previously held by an anonymous ticket-holder who banked £170 million in October 2019.

The new record-breakers mark the second EuroMillions jackpot won in the UK this year, with the £109 million jackpot from the draw on February 4 claimed a few days later. 

Jess said the inspiration behind their win is her late father – who always played before he passed away.

She added: ‘My dad played the Lottery when we were growing up and he played the same numbers every single week.

‘He died about seven years ago and kind of Joe took on the baton as the one who did the Lottery for our family.

‘So he started off using those numbers, but he’d forget them or get them wrong or something, so we then went to Lucky Dip, so that it was luck.

‘But yeah it’s unbelievable because that’s what my dad dreamed of all his life, and used to say to us frequently “Imagine if you won the Lottery, think about if you won the Lottery”.’

Last Tuesday’s win makes the couple richer than Sir Tom Jones or Harry Kane.

Mrs Thwaite added: ‘The win gives us time to dream which we haven’t had before.

‘We’ve had one week to think about this and we now have time to share lots of experiences and go on adventures with our family and friends.’

Asked how they celebrated the win, she continued: ‘We’ve had a family meal, we went and had a family meal so we could share with our family.

‘To tell the truth, we bought bedroom furniture. We bought a chest of drawers and a wardrobe. Other than that we haven’t done anything.’ 

Joe bought the ticket at around 4pm on the day of the draw via the National Lottery app.

The next morning Joe got up as usual at 5.15am to sort out the couple’s dogs.

Once the dogs were happy he checked his phone and saw the email from The National Lottery saying: ‘Good news, you’ve won a prize.’ 

Eventually the alarm rang and, as Jess struggled to turn it off, Joe told her: ‘I’ve got a secret, I’ve got something to tell you.’

Jess said her initial reaction when presented with the news was disbelief, thinking Joe had it wrong, the National Lottery app was wrong or that it was a joke.

But she eventually concluded that it was not worth getting too excited about as it probably was not true, before getting up to make a coffee and start their normal morning routine.

The couple called Camelot once The National Lottery Line opened at 8am and promptly had the life-changing win confirmed.

Despite being told they had just become the UK’s biggest-ever winners, the pair carried on as normal doing the school run and settling down to work from home.

On the cost of living crisis, Joe Thwaite said they bought the house when the economy was better so they had been struggling, adding: ‘This is huge for us.’ 

The couple were asked about whether they plan to help causes or charities close to their heart.

Jess Thwaite said: ‘Do you know what, I think that’s an area we will get to but we’re one week in.

‘It’s blown our mind just getting to this point, and you know, we’re not there yet, but we’re going to definitely take some advice and talk to people about those things.’

Joe said: ‘I still keep thinking I’m going to, like, fall out of bed and it’s all going to be a dream.’

His wife also told of how she had been ‘really worried about going public’, said it will help them be ‘honest’ to the people they love.

She said this is ‘just because I want to protect the people I love’.

‘But I feel this is the way that we can be honest, the more we can enjoy it with them all, and going to allow us to give them loads to them’, Mrs Thwaite added.

And on whether they’re worried about scammers or people coming forward to ask for money, Mrs Thwaite said: ‘I haven’t even thought of anything like that. To be honest we’re a week in, we’re so overwhelmed by other stuff.’ 

Asked if there is one thing they have always dreamed of buying, Mrs Thwaite said: ‘We’re not really those materialistic people. If you saw our house you would know.

‘I’ll probably buy a new car I’m sure, or something like that, but we haven’t got a huge… we’d love to go on a holiday family.’

She added: ‘We had to go buy suitcases to come here because we don’t go on holiday. We never go on holiday. So our kids would just die to go to the sun and do that kind of thing so I’d love to go and do that.’

The couple said their last few holidays have been camping with the kids and the family like nothing more than riding their pushbikes along the country lanes near their home in the Gloucester countryside and they were struggling to pay their rising utility bills and fill up their car ‘just like any normal family’.

But they now want to visit friends around the world they haven’t seen ‘for years and years’ and have fun with their family. Their only big purchase on the horizon is a new car for Jess.

They revealed one of their first purchases were a pair of suitcases in order to pack for the hotel to make their announcement today.

Mr Thwaite did admit that he was likely to buy his ‘dream car’ – a Skoda Superb Estate.

He said: ‘I’m going to be rubbish at this because I’m not a great car person.

‘My dream car was a (Skoda) Superb Estate because of the amount of stuff you can get in the boot, but I haven’t got that, I’ve got a Hyundai.

‘My family is quite grumpy with me because I’m really boring with cars.

‘This is new to me but I’m going to get something that does the job and is a big upgrade to my old little car that’s covered in dents.’

Speaking about what their children want to spend money on, Mrs Thwaite answered: ‘When we told our youngest two children, “if you could have anything in the world now that we have this money, what would you want?”, both of them said a holiday.

‘We don’t go on holiday, they have ponies and everything goes into them.

‘So my youngest said she wants to go to Hawaii. We have no idea why Hawaii, but we think it’s YouTube.

#She’s been talking about Hawaii for two years – and when we said she could go to Hawaii she was just jumping up and down with joy.

‘Our eldest wants to go to America and do a ranch drive on a pony.

‘She is obsessed with her pony – and now we can invite the rest of our family to do those with us – that’s the most important thing for us.’ 

Asked about whether they plan to donate any of their winnings to charitable causes, they said it is ‘an area we will get to but we’re one week in’.

Mr Thwaite said the couple would ‘definitely take some advice and talk to people about those things’.

The dilemma of what to do with a huge lottery win is the stuff of dreams for most people, but those lucky enough to have a huge windfall should plan for the future as well as readjusting to day-to-day life on their new, turbo-charged income, according to finance experts.

Alistair McQueen, head of savings and retirement at Aviva, said: ‘Average household wealth in the UK is just over £300,000, including property, savings, pensions and everything else which is owned.

‘Fewer than 1% of all households hold more than £3m of wealth and so winning millions would lift most people into a very select segment of the population.’

Becky O’Connor, head of pensions and savings at interactive investor, said legal support, independent financial advice and an excellent accountant are key.

Giving her suggestions for what people could potentially do with an enormous windfall, she said: ‘With this kind of money, you have the luxury of being able to separate it out into different investments and types of account and use up all your tax-free allowances – something most of the population can only dream of.

‘So firstly, fill your tax-free allowances including your annual Isa allowance of £20,000 and if you have a partner, their Isa allowance too.

‘Junior ISA allowances of £9,000 for any children you have could be maxed out and don’t forget your pension annual allowance, which is £40,000 or up to your current earnings, whichever is lower.

‘You might also benefit from something called ‘carry forward’, which could allow you to fill up unused pension annual allowance for up to the previous three years.

‘Don’t forget, you can leave money in a defined contribution pension to relatives and they won’t pay inheritance tax on it, so if you want to leave some of your millions to family, your pension can be part of the plan to do so tax efficiently.

‘You should be mindful of the £1.073 million lifetime allowance limit on pensions, above which a tax charge is levied.

‘Sometimes it can be worth going above the limit and paying the extra tax bill, but a good financial adviser will be able to help you plan this as tax efficiently as possible.

‘While making sure you don’t pay more tax than necessary through intelligent use of allowances is important, there’s more to life than tax and with huge sums of money, it’s not something you can expect to avoid completely.

‘Working out how to live off the money will be equally important and with such large sums, investing for income could mean you can live quite well off investment returns with a decent chance of preserving a lot of the capital.’

Ms O’Connor also cautioned that current high inflation and an unpredictable stock market could put pressure on investments – so having a diverse portfolio of assets is an important strategy.

Mr Thwaite has told how the family had been trying to move house for a while and had looked on Rightmove – but in the past what they had wanted was ‘far beyond’ what was affordable.

Rightmove’s property expert Tim Bannister said: ‘Being able to go shopping as a cash buyer for a multimillion-pound home is something many of us only get to dream about, so it’s very exciting for this couple to be able to draw a search around all of the UK on Rightmove and take their pick.

‘If they choose to stay local, the most expensive home for sale in Gloucester is currently £3 million, highlighting just how huge a sum of money their total win is as they could buy it 60 times over.

‘It may not come down to money though as their dream might be to buy a beautiful cottage in the Cotswolds.

‘Home hunters often tell us that even if money was no object they would still want something practical like a utility room over a luxury like a swimming pool, so once they’ve had time to celebrate their good fortune they may find their wish-list includes a lot more practicalities alongside the more exciting things like a cinema room or tennis court.’