PICTURED: SIX of the seven St Helens Glass workers who have just scooped an amazing £161,970 on the National Lottery, crack open the champagne.

A SEVEN strong group of workers from St Helens Glass was in sparkling form to receive their bumper cheque for almost £162,000 after landing five numbers and the bonus ball in the National Lottery.

The syndicate, which consists of leader; Terry Brandwood, who bought the winning ticket in the St Helens branch of Woolworth; Leslie Heyes, Geoff Mathews, Derek Woods, Stephen Hutchinson, Geoff Jackson and James O'Neil, have played the lottery regularly since it started over three years ago and their faith finally came to fruition on Saturday, February 7th's draw when their numbers came up, amassing them a total of just over £23,000 each.

Terry, who didn't watch the lottery draw on TV, described the moment when another syndicate member told him the good news. "I thought it was all a big wind up! One of the other lads phoned me up after the draw and told me we had won and I thought he was just messing about so I put the phone down. But when I checked the tickets, I realised he was right!"

The rest of Terry's evening was then spent trying to contact the others to tell them the news and he added: "I managed to get hold of one of the lads in the pub but another one wasn't on the phone so I had to drive around looking for his house on Sunday morning."

The lucky seven are now planning what to spend their winnings on although all have said they won't be getting carried away. Terry said: "We are all back at work now - looking forward to how we are going to spend our winnings!"

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.