00:0030 years have passed since the first national lottery balls were called and the first of
00:04a very few lucky people have become much, much richer up and down the country, including
00:10here in Kent. From the peculiar Mr P who won a million pounds to go on holiday to the 100,000
00:16zipped by Mrs Z. Not all of Kent's lottery winners have chosen to go public over the
00:21years, but for those who do, it's clear just how much the windfall can change someone's
00:26life. Like Adam and Amy from Maidstone, whose winnings meant the financial freedom to be
00:31closer with their disabled daughter.
00:33Are you shut out the bedroom?
00:35Yeah, to get my phone screen to light up, just to make sure there was as many zeros
00:38there as I thought.
00:39It just means that now we don't have to worry about any future care she might need because
00:43we don't know what the future holds for her, so it just means that financially we'll be
00:47able to support her through whatever and also it means, you know, if it comes to a point
00:51where we can't care for her or we're not around anymore, we can afford the best possible
00:57care for her.
00:58Or Desiree Home, who used her winnings to write a book about how she went from a cancer
01:02diagnosis to winning big in the space of a decade. At the time, however, she told us
01:07the first thing she bought was none other than a toilet seat.
01:10Well, when we moved into our little mobile park home, it had a toilet seat that wouldn't
01:16stay up properly, and you'd put the seat up and it'd go clang, clang all the time,
01:22and I said I wanted a soft-closing toilet seat. So when we were on the lottery, I said
01:28to Wayne, can we have a soft-closing toilet seat, please?
01:32Away from the winners, money raised by the National Lottery has gone towards a huge number
01:36of projects here in Kent, from funding the journeys of some of our Olympic and Paralympic
01:41winners to bringing back the remnants of Kent's cultural history.
01:45The Folks in Lees Lift was established in 1885. It was closed for the last eight years,
01:53but when it reopens again, it will be 140 years since it was, since it originally opened.
02:00So because of the help of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, we are basically able to put
02:07in place our 6.6 million restoration project of the Folks in Lees Lift, which is about
02:14to start. So it's very exciting times ahead. But I think without the Heritage Fund, we
02:19wouldn't have been at all near where we are now. So it's made a huge difference that they
02:26were able to step in and support us.
02:28You might have your lucky numbers, but just like any other form of gambling, the odds
02:32are stacked against you. In order to win the Lottery, you have to be one in 50 million.
02:38Statistically speaking, there's more chance of you being struck by lightning, or becoming
02:41an astronaut, or winning an Oscar.
02:44For free help and advice, head to gambleaware.org.
02:48Bartholomew Hall for KMTV.
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