YOU know it's your day when the simple act of buying a packet of crisps wins you £1,000. That's exactly what happened to Heysham mother-of-three Mary Jones on Saturday afternoon as she walked through the centre of Lancaster. Mary spotted Mr Walkerman, apparently well known for giving away cash to Walkers crisps lovers, in St Nicholas Arcades on Saturday. She went to buy a packet of crisps and then returned to the watching crowd.

During the give-away she was targeted by the publicity loving superhero and answered his question, "Which crisps are you addicted to?" with the winning catchphrase. She was then offered a selection of 'flavour envelopes' and chose one containing a voucher for £500. That's not all, because she was carrying a bag of the crisps at the same time that win was doubled to an amazing 1,000 crisp oncers.

Mary (pictured) told the Citizen: "I was very shocked but it is starting to sink in now. We have decided to use the money to buy a holiday, I've already been to look at some.

"I am a bit of a competition buff and I do enter a lot of them but I have never won anything like this."

And just to prove that it really was Mary's day on Saturday, her eldest daughter Hannah, 6, was also a winner. She took the honours in the Easter bonnet competition in Lancaster's Marketgate centre. Mr Walkerman will be around Lancaster and Morecambe tomorrow (Friday) and Saturday. Keep your eyes peeled.

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