Angela Kelly

Name
Birthname
born on
Place
Timezone
Data source

Gender: F
Kelly, Angela
Cunningham, Angela Maria
2 December 1966 at 18:05 (= 6:05 PM )
Glasgow, Scotland, 55n53, 4w15
GMT h0e (is standard time)
BC/BR in hand

Biography
Angela Kelly from East Kilbride, Scotland, made headlines in 2007 when she won 35
millions pounds in EuroMillions lottery and became the biggest lottery winner at that time.
Her father left home on her 16th birthday, abandoned her along with her two sisters and
mother. She started working in a mail sorting office, married on 15 Aug 1987, but was forced
to nursing her ailing mother and to care her two younger sisters. Her son was born on 4 Sep
1992. Her mother died on 13 July 1997 and 2 years later she separated from her husband.
Her father died in August 2002 and that was another sad blow to her.
She was described as a lovely person, always willing to help anyone.
The raffle was on 10 August 2007, but she checked her tickets 3 days later and on 15 August
made front page news.

Events

Financial : Gain significant money 13 August 2007

Ruined by her 35m jackpot: Britain's biggest lottery

winner
by ZOE BRENNAN
Last updated at 20:51 05 October 2007

Emerging from a cramped flat in the run-down Scottish town of East Kilbride, the dowdy
middle-aged woman does not look out of place.
Clutching a handful of plastic carrier bags, she struggles down the street alongside the schoolrun mums and Asbo kids on their way to the chip shop.

The weather has turned her recently permed hair into a shapeless frizz and her lacklustre skin
is devoid of make-up. Dressed in old jeans and a baggy top, another empty day unfolds.
Her look is not one which would ordinarily turn heads, but as she walks past, curtains twitch
and the children stop and gawp.
For this is Angela Kelly: the Royal Mail worker and single mother who, two months ago,
became Britain's biggest ever lottery winner, worth a staggering 35 million.

There's not much to spend your money on in East Kilbride. Lunch will be a burger for one at
McDonald's, and later she might treat herself to a manicure at the Marina beauty salon.
Since her win, Angela has gained nearly a stone, lost her boyfriend and - apart from bleak
trips to the shopping mall - become a virtual recluse.
Instead of living it up, she is driving a borrowed second-hand car, living like a hermit in a
backstreet flat in an area plagued by joyriders, shopping in half-price sales at a retail park,
going to drive-through fast-food chains, and living on supermarket ready meals.
An isolated, lonely figure, the moral of her story might be the old adage: "Be careful what you
wish for."
It is a far cry indeed from the magical day on August 15 when Angela made front page news
after her numbers came up in the EuroMillions triple rollover draw, making her richer than
Princes William and Harry and footballer Wayne Rooney.
Then, she literally could not believe her luck. Financially stretched and worried about her
overdraft, she had bought a 1.50 lucky dip ticket at her local supermarket.

Reading the newspaper during her break at work on Monday morning, she saw that someone
had won many millions the previous Friday night, and that the prize remained unclaimed.
She pulled out her ticket. Number after number matched the winning draw. Still unable to
comprehend her luck, 40-year-old Angela asked her colleagues at the post office, where she
had worked from the age of 16, to check her numbers for her. The odds on her winning were
one in 76 million.
"I didn't know what to do at first, I couldn't believe it," she said. "It was only when everyone
in the office started cheering that I realised it must have been me who'd won.
"I rang the National Lottery phoneline to make my claim, but my hands were shaking so
much it was difficult to write my name on the back of the ticket like they asked. I couldn't say
anything. I pushed my chair back and put my head between my knees, I was so
flabbergasted."

One colleague captured the fateful moment on her mobile phone; another brought a cup of tea
to calm her nerves.
Minutes later, Angela's 14-year-old son John telephoned for a chat. With breathtaking
understatement, she told him: "I've had a wee win on the lottery."
"Is it a million pounds?" he asked. "No," she replied, "it's 35."
By now, the Camelot machine was cranking into action. Their advisers arrived, collecting
Angela from her workplace in a limousine and whisking her away to a secret location: the
250-a-night Airth Castle hotel in Stirlingshire.
There, Camelot's 'fairy godmother' Dot Renshaw prepared her for what lay ahead. Renshaw is
head of a team of seven who help big winners cope with their windfall and the ensuing media
frenzy. First, she took Angela shopping - but for the down-to-earth Royal Mail employee,
designer shops were too daunting.
She confided to Dot: "I look in the window but never go in because I couldn't even afford a
scarf in there." Instead, she chose a simple, brown, polka-dot dress from the department store
House of Fraser in which to face the cameras.
Dot, of course, had seen it all before, but felt confident that Angela would cope. "We get some
people who are already comfortable financially, or even wealthy, and they tend to absorb the
news more easily," she says. "Then you get someone who's been made redundant and is
struggling to pay the bills and they're stunned.
"Angela seemed to take it in her stride. But it can take weeks, months or even years for them
to fully realise what has happened."
She arranged for Angela to bank her 35,425,412 cheque with a private bank and meet
financial advisers - the interest alone on her win each week amounts to 21,000 after tax, the
same figure as her annual salary at the Post Office.
Renshaw also counselled her on the consequences of going public with her win, but Angela
was adamant that she wanted to embrace her good fortune openly. As we shall see, this is
something she has come to regret.
At a glitzy Press conference hosted by GMTV presenter Fiona Phillips, Angela gushed about
the joy her win would bring.
She would buy a new Seat Ibiza, to replace the one she had crashed in May, upgrade her ticket
to first class for a planned trip to Canada, and possibly holiday in Hawaii - because it featured
in her favourite 1970s television programme, the police series Hawaii Five-0.
Never mind that she could afford to buy a Caribbean island outright, she had recently bought
a fitted kitchen in the sales, so she wouldn't be moving from her two-bedroom 80,000 former
council house until it was installed. Friends and family were high on her list of priorities, and
she was thinking of donating to a few charities.

Ominously, she added: "Inside, I am churning up really. I am not that calm. It is so weird really, really weird - because a 21,000 salary is not a bad wage. It is liveable. I have always
got by. To know that I have that every week and loads more, I just cannot get my head around
it all.
"The most I've ever won before was a bottle of whisky in the works Christmas raffle and 20
in our lottery syndicate."
The fact that she was not formally separated from her husband, Gerald Kelly, would not cause
problems, she said, and with a new boyfriend on the scene and money to burn, life was
looking rosy for perhaps the first time since her marriage had broken down eight years earlier.
Her ex would get a share, she vowed, explaining that they had never divorced "because we
didn't want to put John through more heartache.
"Gerry is so happy for me and John. I have spoken to him," she said. "He said: 'That's you,
you never need to worry about anything again.' He said good luck and well done. I need to sit
down and speak to Gerry about what he is looking for. He is not an unreasonable man."
Unguarded in her excitement, Angela then confided to the cameras that she did indeed have a
new boyfriend, William 'Billy' Quinn.
He works at the Royal Mail's Springburn sorting office, where Angela was employed as an
administrative assistant and her estranged husband is transport manager.
She said: "I have been seeing someone for a while. Things are going great, and we get on
really well and have fun. I think he is stressed out at the moment."
Of her son, she said: "He's a handful at times, but he's a really nice wee boy who does as he's
told. He isn't the kind of personality to go off the rails because of this."
Caught in the blaze of camera flashes, with her sleek hairdresser hair and professionally
applied make-up, this was truly a Cinderella moment - fate had waved its magic wand.
Back home, however, the reality of this cataclysmic win began to set in. Life had not prepared
Angela for riches. Born Angela Cunningham, she describes herself as a "3 burger and pint
girl". From a working-class Glasgow home, her father was also a Post Office worker, and her
mother a housewife.
A friend says: "She's just a wee lassie from the Glasgow housing estates; she's not cut out for
this sort of money."
In the weeks after her win, Angela went back to the sorting office where she had worked for
24 years to hand over to her successor and say goodbye to colleagues.
She intimated that she was already having trouble adjusting, saying: "The difficult thing for
me will be not going in to work every day. I'll miss the adult company. I always liked a gossip
and a gab at work."

Most troubling of all, it soon became apparent that her beloved son did not want a new life.
He did not want to move from his comprehensive school, nor did he want to leave home and
his East Kilbride friends or to abandon his aspirations to become a fireman after his GCSEs.
A source close to the family says: "This has been really difficult for Angela, because she lives
for John. Once his wish-list of a PlayStation and various bits of teenage kit had been fulfilled,
he wanted to settle back into life with his mates.
"Of course, that's not really possible when you're suddenly the heir to a 35 million fortune.
The family are really struggling to cope with the change in their circumstances."
It had been reported that Angela was looking to buy a property in the upmarket village of
Thorntonhall, on the outskirts of Glasgow, but this did not come to pass.
Instead, she and John have moved from their house into a modest property nearby, owned by
Angela's sister, Patricia. This has enabled John to continue at his school, but has provoked
much speculation locally on why they appear unable to embrace their wealth.
The family has indeed found it difficult dealing with the spotlight now fixed on them. A shy
person, Angela was unprepared for the attention that comes with a massive lottery win.
She has been besieged by people begging for hand-outs, and received a deluge of hard luck
letters asking for help.
Friends - apparently including John's school pals - have leaked stories to the press about their
plans, and Kelly has now instructed lawyers to protect her son from intrusion.
Meanwhile, it emerged that Angela's exhusband has sought security advice over his fears for
his son's safety. He has John to stay at weekends at his flat two miles away from Angela's
former home, and is concerned that the boy could be a target for extortion attempts and
ransom demands as a result of the win.
A colleague says: "He and Angela have had several conversations about it. It's a serious issue.
Suddenly, John has gone from being an ordinary kid to the son and heir to one of Britain's
richest women.
"Gerry has asked for help from the Royal Mail's security people in Belfast. They have
massive experience of dealing with hijack and kidnap."
Then came the difficulties with her boyfriend, Billy. Apparently, the father-of-two has asked
his employers for a six-month sabbatical, during which he plans to backpack around the world
- without Angela.
The 43-year-old is still living in the flat he moved into in 2004 when he split from wife
Janice, and friends say he and Angela are no longer together.
A friend says: "He's keeping a low profile, and it's obvious something has happened between
them because he doesn't exactly seem thrilled about the whole thing. In fact, he's never
mentioned Angela to colleagues since he came back.

"They were always very close at work, having breakfast and lunch together and travelling to
work in the same car, but he's never mentioned how she's getting on. He's told the bosses he
wants to take six months to a year off work to do the backpacking trip, but there's no way
Angela would be going with him.
"She lives for her son. She's not going to go gallivanting around the world when the lad has
got exams coming up. It just goes to show money can't buy love or happiness."
Little wonder, then, that recent pictures of Angela Kelly show her looking unkempt and
strained. She apparently spends all day alone, waiting for John to come home from school.
She often has a budget lunch in a cheap family diner, The Leeburn, where the most expensive
item on the menu costs 12.99 - but with her wealth she could pay for celebrity chef Gordon
Ramsay to cook her breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Far from the legendary 'spend, spend, spend' mentality of 1960s pools winner Viv Nicholson,
the only treat Angela appears to have allowed herself is a 63 perm at the local hair salon.
Last week, she answered the door to her sister's flat defensively, and refused to discuss the
impact money has had on her life, saying: "How did you know I was here? I don't want to talk
to anyone."
Asked if she had split from her boyfriend, she said: "I won't answer any questions about my
personal life."
A neighbour says: "The tragedy for Angela is that had she won 50,000, she would have been
over the moon - she would have paid off the mortgage, gone on holiday and felt financially
secure.
"Winning 35 million has really ruined her life. The pressure is just too huge for her to bear.
She's hardly living the dream - she seems to be at a loss as to what to do, and is just adrift. She
was perfect

A lottery multimillionaire has secretly wed her long-term partner in a sunset ceremony on a
beach in Hawaii.
Angela Kelly, 46, who won 35million on the EuroMillions draw in 2007, had no guests and
paid only 40 for a licence to marry Billy Quinn, 49.
She said: The holiday was booked we just decided to do it while we were out there so we
could do the honeymoon at the same time.
Angelas only luxury was a dress by the Queens designer Stewart Parvin.
A photographer and a video cameraman witnessed the ceremony.

Angela fulfilled an ambition to visit the home of her favourite TV show, Hawaii Five-0, when
she flew to Halekulani Hotel in Waikiki Beach in June.
The pair, from Glasgow, met at work at the Royal Mail, where mum-of-one Angela was a
21,000-a-year sorting office boss.

Lotto winner who won't spend, spend, spend

TWO years to the week that she won 35m, Angela Kelly keeps the excouncil flat she once called home and has her hair done at the
same salon as before her win
As she plods along the street to her ex-council flat in Glasgow, Angela Kelly could be
mistaken for any other middle-aged mum. In her modest high-street clothes and flip-flops,
Angela excites little interest on her solitary visits to her old two-bed flat in East Kilbride.
Its only when she gets back behind the wheel of her 40,000 four-wheel-drive Mercedes that
you get an inkling that she is just a little different from the neighbours. Few would guess,
however, that this woman with her slightly diffident demeanour, who describes herself as a
3 burger and pint girl, is in fact Britains biggest lottery winner.
It may be most peoples ultimate fantasy to hit the EuroMillions jackpot but 42-year-old
Angela is still a long way from coming to terms with being a multi-millionairess. Since she
became the sole winner of a 35.4million EuroMillions fortune in 2007, her spending has
been the epitome of frugality.

She hasnt changed a bit, says one source, who still sees Angela regularly.
With a lot of rich people, even when theyre dressing down, they look sort of wealthy. But
Angela doesnt have that at all. She just looks like a normal woman who you might meet in
the shops. Her clothes certainly dont look expensive. She still goes into all her old shops and
gets her hair done at the local salon that she used to visit years ago. Even after the win shed
be going to the Co-op and visiting bargain shops. It may have all happened two years ago, but
its as if she hasnt begun to appreciate how much shes worth.
She has bought an 850,000 home in a conservation village on the southern fringes of
Glasgow, but this month it was revealed she has still held on to the tiny second-floor flat she
used to share with her son, John. Her old furniture and curtains remain intact. The property is
worth about 120,000 and is on a street that used to be plagued by joyriders but Angela
appears to feel comfortable here.
As one neighbour said, Its weird that shes kept the flat on. She pops back quite often to
pick up post and seems to like having a sit down there. Apparently, everything in the flat is
more or less untouched from when she won the money. Shes there for a few hours before
shes off again. Its like this is where she feels at home still its more normal to her maybe
than where she lives now.

Although Angela has given money to family and friends not to mention buying her
boyfriends estranged wife a 225,000 villa it would seem that her colossal fortune is still
largely intact. The payments on her luxury new home would have been more than covered by
the interest.
Theres also been a modest outlay given her fortune on a 270,000 home for her estranged
husband Gerry, 46, who now drives around in a 25,000 X-type Jaguar, but there have been
no lavish holidays and no wild parties, according to friends and neighbours.
For the most part, Angela spends days on end tucked away inside her new home where she
lives with her son John, 16, and her partner William Quinn, 45.
Her new house on a millionaires row with breathtaking views of the Renfrewshire Hills is
only a few minutes away from where she used to live.
It was two years ago this month that Angela, then a 21,000-a-year clerk working for the
Royal Mail, carved out her place in lottery history.
The day before the Friday draw she popped down to Sainsburys and bought a lucky dip
ticket. But she didnt check her numbers until she was at work three days later and realised
that she had netted more than double the previous biggest UK EuroMillions haul.
I went on my break and got the newspaper and saw somebody had won all these millions on
Friday night, she said at the time.
Then I remembered I had bought a ticket and thought I had better check it.
I saw the two star numbers were the same and I thought maybe I had won a tenner. But it
kept going and going. I thought, This must be last weeks ticket. I pushed my chair back and
put my head between my knees, I was so flabbergasted. I didnt know what to do at first; I
couldnt believe it. It was only when everyone in the office started cheering that I realised that
it must have been me whod won.
The dream win was almost like compensation for all the ill luck that had dogged Angela. On
her 16th birthday her father Patrick walked out of the family home. Angela barely saw him
afterwards and was only just back on speaking terms with him when he died in 2002.
When she married Royal Mail colleague Gerry in 1987 she was walked up the aisle by her 27year-old uncle Gerard but two years later he died of cystic fibrosis. In 1997 her mother Ellen
died of breast cancer and Angela split from her husband, although the couple never divorced.
As her aunt Jean McCulloch said a few days after Angela hit the jackpot: Angela
deserves that money more than anybody I know. Shes had a tough life and its about
time she had a bit of good luck. Now, instead of worrying about where the next penny is
coming from, shes wondering what, if anything, she should do with her fortune.
Angela has also been concerned at the effect of her millions on her son John, on whom she
dotes. One of the reasons she stayed in the area was because John wanted to stay at his
comprehensive school. He thought hed miss his friends and didnt want to give up on his
dream of becoming a fireman.

It all sounds rather stressful a far cry from the effortless life that most people expect after a jackpot win.
As one old acquaintance said: Angelas aware of the enormity of the responsibility that has
come with this fortune. It preys constantly. Thats probably why shes spent so little on
herself.
Brian Caswell from Bolton won 25million on EuroMillions in June this year but the 74-yearold grandfather vowed it wouldnt turn his head. Asked what he was planning to spend it on,
he said hed always had trouble growing carrots on his allotment and he might splash out on
some professional advice to help him have more success.
Joanne Gilbert from Abertillery, Gwent, scooped 1.1million on the National Lottery in 2007.
After paying for a week in Turkey for herself, her son and his girlfriend, the 47-year-old
single mum went back to her 150-a-week job cleaning dirty sheets at a hospital laundry. She
had worked there for 21 years, it was a big part of her life and she didnt see why she should
give it up.
Eileen Williams from Leigh, in Lancashire, was delighted when she scooped 2.4million on
the Lottery in 2004. It meant she could trade in her 10-year-old Ford Fiesta for a nice new
Nissan Micra. Eileen, 60, also vowed to continue shopping in Asda, although she might treat
herself to a new outfit from Marks & Spencer.
Andy Strain from Kirkintilloch, near Glasgow, won 5.6million in 2003 but the 69-year-old
retired seaman refused to give up his daily visits to a local social club or to move from his
one-bedroom house. He bought generous presents for his extended family but continued to
smoke roll-ups and permitted himself just two extravagances: a Ford Focus and a new
driveway to park it on.
Derek Wilson, 54, of Thornton, near Kirkcaldy, scooped 11.1million in 2001. His first
impulse was to hand in his notice at the electronics factory where he had worked for 27 years
but he thought better of it and came back after taking a weeks fishing holiday.
He and his wife said they had no plans to leave their council house but they did buy one
luxury item: a 250 Dyson vacuum cleaner.