Peter Lavery, a bus driver earning £200 a week, won a £10.2 million lottery jackpot in 1996. However, his life took a dark turn when he returned from a celebratory holiday to Belfast, facing a media circus and thousands of letters from strangers begging for money.
Winning the Jackpot
Lavery was 34 when he struck it lucky. He was out with friends when someone informed him he had won the jackpot, but he was too intoxicated to recall clearly. It wasn't until the following morning that he realized his world had transformed. In a fresh interview on the In Good Company podcast, he said: "It felt unreal."
When asked about his immediate plans for the fortune, he revealed: "Put it this way, in the first four weeks, I spent £3 million giving it away to my family and charities." After discovering his win on Sunday morning, he completed a five-hour bus shift, quit his job by Wednesday, and was soon at a five-star resort in the Caribbean.
The Celebratory Holiday
Lavery took 12 friends and family members to St Lucia at a cost of £66,000. "It was all flying out club class, you name it, it was the best resort in the centre of St Lucia," he said. He woke up each morning struggling to comprehend what had happened, describing it as a dream.
However, the dream turned nightmarish when he returned to Belfast. "I got back to Belfast after my three-and-a-half weeks away. The head of the post office came to my door right, and he goes, 'We have 15,000 letters in the exchange for you, what do you want me to do with them?'" Lavery asked for the letters to be returned, as most lacked his proper address, with envelopes simply bearing: "Peter Lavery lottery winner."
Dealing with Begging Letters
Some letters reached his letterbox. When asked if any caught his attention, Lavery said: "They do, but where do you start and where do you finish? People who come, they're in desperate situations to do so, like they must be so desperate to think you are the answer." He added: "Listen, you can only do what you can do, and sometimes you give an organisation £1,000 and they turn and say 'you may as well give us two' so as long as my heart tells you I've done something... I didn't have to do anything. And if you don't get that in your head, then you put your own head away too."
Health and Lifestyle Consequences
Despite his generosity, Lavery's lifestyle took a toll. He indulged in food, drink, and partying, spending £300,000 on a home in the 'Golden Triangle' area and half a million on cars in the first two years, including Jaguars and Bentleys (he later sold them, keeping only his Mercedes).
Before his 40th birthday, he reached a crisis point. He realized his drinking would be fatal if not curbed and was diagnosed with Type-2 diabetes. Speaking in 2023 for a BBC documentary, he said: "I didn't drink every day but once I got a drink in me I just didn't want to go home so I would be out in Belfast until four or five in the morning. It's nothing to be proud of. I didn't have liver or heart problems but my sugar levels were going in the wrong direction and my doctor, who's a good friend of mine, told me to change my lifestyle or I'd be injecting insulin forever."
Turning His Life Around
Lavery has since given up drinking and is now a successful entrepreneur, having established Titanic Distillers. He has donated nearly £2 million to various charities and once treated 20 children affected by the Troubles and their parents to a trip to Disney World in Florida. Reflecting on his win, he described it as the "biggest upheaval" of his life.
