When Madelaine Thomas handed her Lotto 6-49 ticket to the cashier in a Port Alberni convenience store on Tuesday evening, the machine froze.
“Then this big sign lit up: $5-million winner. That’s when the world started to shake,” Harold Thomas said Wednesday morning, minutes after the couple claimed their prize in Vancouver.
“At first you don’t believe it. I was just going ‘wow, wow, wow, wow.’ Madelaine went into semi-shock. She was having quite the problem.”
Before retirement, Harold was a flight engineer on the Martin Mars water bomber. Madelaine worked at CIBC. The couple have two sons, three grandchildren and a fourth grandchild on the way.
“We’ve been buying two tickets every Saturday and every Wednesday for 6-49 and BC/49 and the Extra steadily for the last five years,” Harold said. “It’s a Mini Dip, costs $5.”
Harold heard someone in the Port Alberni area had won Saturday’s Lotto 6-49 draw. He checked his ticket on Monday, but it wasn’t the lucky one.
“I kept asking my wife: ‘Have you checked your ticket?’ She said: ‘No, no, I’ll check soon.’ So [Tuesday] night when we stopped at a convenience store, I said: ‘Why don’t you come and check your ticket?’ ”
They phoned the B.C. Lottery Corp. and had their winning number confirmed.
“We thought why wait. We’ll go to Vancouver to claim our prize,” Harold said.
“We caught the first ferry this morning and we’re heading back to the ferry now with a cheque.”
Their plan is to help their sons live a little more comfortably in what Harold refers to as today’s mad world of high housing prices. They want to put money away for their grandchildren’s education and do renovations to their house.
“There’s some upgrades we’ve been thinking of. Maybe a new set of wheels, a Volkswagen Tiguan, the SUV,” Harold said.
“Maybe in about a month’s time we’ll go to Mexico for about a week and let things settle down, then go on with life. Back to fishing and gardening. My wife loves to play with flowers. I like fishing and I like to do a little gardening myself.”
On Wednesday, they sent the photograph of them holding the $5-million cheque to their sons.
“One son got back right away. He said ‘Wow, Dad really? Really Dad, is this a joke?’
“It’s for real,” Harold said.
