A couple who scooped a £1m lottery scratch card prize have thanked their cat, six-year-old ginger tom Shortcake, for their good fortune.
Andrew and Paula Hancock, who run a catering business, forgot to pick up cat food on their way home from work, so Andrew rushed out to buy some – and bought a £5 Monopoly millionaire scratch card, which won one of the four jackpot prizes.
He told the ITV News: “I went to the petrol station, filled up, got a scratch card and went back to the car. I scratched the card and I’m looking at the card, in disbelief.
“So, I thought, I’ll get straight home and go out for the cat food later on, which we didn’t, so he [Shortcake] had ham. He was quite happy with that…If it wasn’t for Shortcake, we wouldn’t be millionaires.”
Andrew, 46, and Paula, 43, who live near Mansfield, in Nottinghamshire, are planning a holiday to Australia.
Asked if the pet had brought them much luck before, Andrew said ‘not particularly. He’s just a normal cat’, but added that Shortcake would now ‘absolutely’ be getting an upgrade on his food choices.
