How It Feels... To Win Tattslotto

The Age

Monday January 15, 2007

MICHELLE HAMER Michelle Hamer is the author of How it Feels (New Holland) $24.95

Winning the lottery means life becomes a dream, right? Not exactly, says Roger.

I WAS a sergeant chief in the army in 1986. I came home from a fundraising function one night and heard the Tattslotto draw on TV. My wife Kaye threw her pen in the air and called out: "We've won it!" I had to check the ticket several times just to make sure.

We didn't have any money to celebrate so we borrowed money to buy a carton of beer.

There wasn't much sleep that weekend; we were very restless. We didn't know what to do or think. There could have been five winners or we could have it all by ourselves. We had to wait from Saturday night until Tuesday morning to find out because it was a long weekend.

In those days you didn't register with Tattslotto or anything so we had to hold the ticket in our house. It was hidden down Kaye's bra, under the pillows - there were about 10 different places.

We thought we might have won enough to buy a house, about 50 or 60 grand. We were battlers, more than battlers at that stage. We were paying off a car, paying off furniture loans like everybody else. I was hoping to stay in the army long enough to afford to buy our first house, and Kaye worked too.

Kaye always bought tickets, she'd been doing it forever, but it was the first Quick Pick she'd ever bought. Some woman that Kaye knew pushed in front of her in the queue when she went to buy the ticket and Kaye just let her go - and that meant we got the winning ticket.

At two o'clock on Tuesday I was in the car when I heard on the radio that there had only been one winner in Tatts. We had scooped the pool. We won $1.4 million. I had to pull over and have a smoke, my hands were shaking that much. It's something that you don't react to. Even now you just can't comprehend it.

We never actually saw any cash, all we saw was the bank account statement showing the money had gone into our account.

I decided to get out of the army. I was only staying in to do my 20 years of service and make enough money to buy a house.

The first thing we did was pay off all the loans. We bought a house and a new car each; neither of us had ever owned a new car. We went to Singapore for a holiday, which was a real big step for us. It was the greatest experience we'd ever had. We'd never been overseas before, we could never afford anything like that.

I bought myself some nice fishing gear and Kaye refurnished the house. We had great pleasure in giving our other furniture to a friend who was really battling.

But nothing was like we thought it would be when we won. You think it's going to be the best thing ever, but it's not. The best thing about winning was being able to give money to our family. That was fantastic. It was actually better than we thought it would be. We gave away $260,000 - $20,000 for each brother and sister and our parents.

When we found out what we'd won I gave one sister her share and she started crying and said: "You know what this means to me? This means I'll never have to work again." That meant the world to me. She went and told them to shove their job.

Winning the money hasn't meant Kaye and I haven't had our ups and downs, but I think it's probably brought us closer together. The worst thing about winning was the way people treated us. In a small town like ours everybody knows you. Some people say that you change when you win money, but it's not you, it's the people around you.

We got heaps of letters from people asking for money. People who I thought were our friends changed their attitude towards us. I got into a couple of terrific bloody fights in the pub so I stopped going. People would make smart-arse remarks about how I could shout the bar - just jealousy. In the end they drove us out of the town.

Kaye was always very good with money. If I want any I just go and ask her for it. I'm a bugger for getting caught out down the street with no money. I never walked around with a couple of grand in my pocket. With our home and investments we wouldn't have a quarter of the money left now.

I'm into the simple things in life, a boat so I can go fishing when I want, that's all.

But you know life's struggle never ever stopped. People think when you win money you're immune from all the shit, but you're not, you still cop it all.

It's been a real battle with our two kids, they're like everybody else's kids. Our son recently had a car accident with his two little girls. They were all fine, luckily. Our daughter is driving up and down the highway all the time and the worry about that never stops.

Money can't buy you health. You worry about your kids all the time and now that they've got their own kids, you worry about them too. -- MICHELLE HAMER

Michelle Hamer is the author of How it Feels (New Holland) $24.95

© 2007 The Age

Back to News Index | Back to Home