Gary MacDonald walked back into the place he had once left behind and handed out bouquets of flowers and Lotto lucky dip tickets to the colleagues who knew him as a delivery driver, not a millionaire. The 61-year-old returned to his former workplace at Lakeside Shopping Centre in Thurrock, Essex, after winning £5.2 million on the lottery and retiring last year.
For more than 30 years, MacDonald delivered parcels to stores across the centre, starting days with an alarm at 5.30am and ending them with the kind of routine that made him a familiar face. He said he had made a promise to himself to come back for a day to the job he had already retired from, and the visit became a surprise that old colleagues at the Babyeze shop were still talking about.
“It’s been a crazy 12 months, from discovering I’d won a £5.2m Lotto jackpot and starring in the Lotto TV ad, to getting married and moving house,” MacDonald said. “It’s a good job I retired early – being a Lotto millionaire is turning out to be a full-time occupation!”
The win changed his life quickly. After leaving work, he married his long-term partner Anita and moved from Barking, east London, into a new four-bedroom detached home in Essex. But the return to Lakeside showed that the old job still matters to him, even if he no longer needs it.
Donna Samuels, who works at Babyeze, called the visit an “incredible surprise” and said MacDonald had been there every day, rain or shine, with a joke and a smile. She said she worried when he suddenly stopped appearing last year, then was “over the moon” when she learned the reason. “He absolutely didn’t need to do this, but I’m so touched that he has,” she said. “Gary sharing the joy is typical of him, just goes to show what a diamond he is.”
The surprise visit also underlined the part of the story that sits behind the money: MacDonald did not return because he had to, but because he wanted to keep a promise to himself and share the win with the people who knew him before it. Whether he keeps making public appearances after this one is not clear, but for one day at least, the former driver was back where he had spent over three decades delivering parcels and lifting spirits.
