A down-to-earth Mearns couple who landed a £58 million lottery jackpot have bought a penthouse flat in Dundee.
Fred, 68, and Lesley Higgins, 57, from Laurencekirk took 14th place on the National Lottery’s UK rich list following the life-changing EuroMillions jackpot on July 10.
Despite looking at properties in Barbados – and buying a new Audi A5 and top-end BMW – the pair have been keeping their feet firmly on the ground.
The couple said they refuse to let the huge windfall go to their heads and still use their Tesco Clubcard and discount shopping vouchers.
But they could not resist the urge to splash out £430,000 on a penthouse flat overlooking the River Tay in Dundee.
Mr Higgins told the Scottish Sun: “It looks right onto the River Tay and ticked all the boxes for us.
>>24 Days of Christmas – Click here for special festive deals from some of our favourite local businesses
“It’s the place we’ve always wanted. We went and looked at it twice then walked out about 90 minutes later and bought it.”
Mr Higgins, who has bought lottery tickets since its launch in 1994, said he still can’t give up his weekly punts.
He still puts on four lines every week and feared he’d won big again when Camelot launched a hunt for an unclaimed £76m ticket when they were in Malta.
The couple want to help local organisations that are not mainstream and are in talks to set up a charity.
Retired motor trade worker Mr Higgins had already retired from his job when they scooped the jackpot, while Mrs Higgins wasted no time in handing in her notice from her role as account manager at Montrose Port Authority.
The couple have also forgiven teenage shop worker Sean Grant after he ripped up the £58 million winning EuroMillions ticket.
Mr Higgins took his ticket to his local Scotmid where the 18-year-old ripped it up and threw it in the bin after thinking it was not a winner.
The machine then told the former Mearns Academy pupil to contact Camelot because the winning sum was more than the store could pay out so he quickly retrieved it from the bin.
Sean said both he and Mr Higgins stood “clueless” because, at the time, they still had no idea how much he had won.
The National Lottery has made more than 5,000 millionaires since 1994.
The biggest Scottish win was the largest in Europe when, in 2011, Colin and Christine Weir from Largs scooped £161.7m.
Closer to home, Ellon couple Libby and Alisdair Rae won £2.2m in 2012 from a ticket bought on a whim at their local Tesco.
