{"id":480079,"date":"2026-06-03T00:38:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T00:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/480079\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T00:38:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T00:38:16","slug":"man-who-quit-job-after-e6m-lotto-win-returns-to-old-workplace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/480079\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who quit job after \u20ac6m Lotto win returns to old workplace"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man who quit his delivery job after winning \u20ac6 million on the Lotto surprised his former colleagues by returning to his old workplace.<\/p>\n

14:54, 02 Jun 2026Updated 14:55, 02 Jun 2026<\/p>\n

\"Undated<\/p>\n

Undated handout photo issued by allwyn of Gary MacDonald, who quit his job after scooping \u00a35.2 million on the lottery, with Katie Feeney, during his visit to his former workplace(Image: allwyn \/PA Wire)<\/p>\n

A delivery driver who quit his job after scooping \u00a35.2 million (\u20ac6m) on the lottery has paid a visit to his former workplace to surprise old colleagues with bouquets of flowers and Lotto lucky dip<\/a> tickets.<\/p>\n

Gary MacDonald, 61, delivered parcels to stores across Lakeside Shopping Centre in Thurrock, Essex, for more than 30 years before his win last year.<\/p>\n

He quit his job after his win, married his long-term partner Anita and has moved from Barking, east London, to settle into a new four-bedroom detached home <\/a>in Essex.<\/p>\n

He said he had made a promise to himself to head back to his old place of work, and has now done so with a hamper of goodies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a crazy 12 months, from discovering I\u2019d won a \u00a35.2m (\u20ac6m) Lotto jackpot<\/a> and starring in the Lotto TV ad, to getting married and moving house,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good job I retired early \u2013 being a Lotto millionaire is turning out to be a full-time occupation! That said, I\u2019m delighted to come out of retirement for the day to fulfil the promise I made myself.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been great surprising my old colleagues, their faces have been a picture. I think we\u2019ve done a brilliant job of surprising them and spreading the joy with today\u2019s deliveries.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Undated<\/p>\n

Undated handout photo issued by allwyn of Gary MacDonald, who quit his job after scooping \u00a35.2 million on the lottery, with Donna Samuels, during his visit to his former workplace to surprise old colleagues (Image: allwyn \/PA Wire)<\/p>\n

Donna Samuels, manager of the Babyeze shop at Lakeside, said it was an \u201cincredible surprise\u201d to see Mr MacDonald again.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe absolutely didn\u2019t need to do this, but I\u2019m so touched that he has,\u201d she said. \u201cThen again, Gary sharing the joy is typical of him, just goes to show what a diamond he is.<\/p>\n

\"gary<\/p>\n

Gary MacDonald celebrates his huge windfall <\/p>\n

\u201cFor 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\u2019t there one day last year, I worried there was something wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was over the moon when I discovered the real reason, winning on the National Lottery honestly couldn\u2019t have happened to a nicer chap.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Undated<\/p>\n

Undated handout photo issued by allwyn of Gary MacDonald, who quit his job after scooping \u00a35.2 million on the lottery, with Pauline Richardson, during his visit to his former workplace to surprise old colleagues(Image: allwyn \/PA Wire)<\/p>\n

Mr MacDonald said that in his previous job as a delivery driver<\/a>, his alarm would go off at 5.30am each day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always taken great pride in doing a job well and that\u2019s what I did all those years at Lakeside, but what really made it was the many people I\u2019d see daily,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith 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.<\/p>\n

\"Gary<\/p>\n

Gary MacDonald celebrating his \u00a35.2 million Lotto Jackpot win(Image: PA)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s taken a while to get back here, but looking at the happy faces and the laughter, it\u2019s been worth the wait. The only problem, my fabulous wife Anita has used the opportunity for a little bit of a shopping spree!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr MacDonald previously said that his first purchase after his lottery win was a Shark vacuum cleaner.<\/p>\n

Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest news from the Irish Mirror direct to your inbox: Sign up here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who quit his delivery job after winning \u20ac6 million on the Lotto surprised his former colleagues…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,1392,61,60,15423,9077,4310],"class_list":["post-480079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-employment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-lotto","tag-national-lottery","tag-property"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}