A plumber who won nearly £15million on the lottery was back at work fixing toilets yesterday (thurs) – just two days after banking his whopping cheque.
Super-flush John Doherty, 52, said he didn’t want to pull the plug because of his loyal customers and would be bored sitting at home.
Dad-of-two John and his wife Alison, 50, discovered their pipe dream had come true earlier this month and were revealed as the latest lotto jackpot winners on Tuesday.
But by 9am yesterday John was back in his black overalls and behind the wheel of his black Mercedes heading to service a boiler he’d fitted before he won.
He said he was thinking about cutting his working week to four days but added: “I really enjoy my work – I’ve been doing it a long time.”
He said: “I want to stay grounded. I’ve got a lot of loyal customers and I don’t want to let them down.
“I’m doing stuff that was arranged before all this happened.”
Despite his new-found fortune, John said he couldn’t imagine sitting at home all day.
John, from Elderslie, Renfrewshire, Scotland, set up his JDPS plumbing and heating engineer firm in 1984.
As he left his house yesterday he added: “I’m just off up the road to service a boiler I fitted.
“My customers are older people and they’ve treated me just the same after the win which is what I want.
“I’m just back off two holidays so I definitely don’t think I should be sitting on a beach.
“I will treat myself – but once it’s all settled down a bit
“I’ll probably slow down a wee bit – I’d like to go four days a week – but I still want to keep doing it because it’s mine. If I was working for someone else I’d be away.”
The couple’s numbers came up after Alison let a customer go ahead of her in the queue at their local Nisa convenience store and then decided to follow suit when the other customer bought a lucky dip ticket.
After their six numbers came up on July 2, the cool-headed couple hid their precious winning slip under a lantern at home – because they had a holiday booked.
They flew off to Florida with children Ryan, 20 and Laura, 11, before getting the ticket validated on their return.
They celebrated their £14,671,343 win with a £45 delivery of pizzas from Domino’s and Alison splashed out on a £300 Coach designer handbag.
