A HAMPSHIRE couple are set for a golden retirement after a £1m lottery win.

The pair are cracking open the champagne today after winning the Lotto Millionaire Raffle.

Geoff and Judith Coombes from Sarisbury Green play the Lotto every Saturday and scooped the life-changing prize on the Lotto Millionaire Raffle.

After two sleepless nights the couple celebrated on Wednesday evening with a curry at their favourite Locks Heath restaurant Basmati with daughter and son-in-law.

They have already booked a holiday to Barbados for the end of July - but in economy class. "That's another holiday if you go first class, " said Geoff.

Although Judith hasn't bought herself anything yet, she plans on extending the conservatory at their two bed bungalow and Geoff has splashed out on a Mountfield 164 push lawnmower - which had £50 pounds off at Screwfix.

The winning ticket was one of a batch of four which the couple buy monthly online and they say they will carry on playing.

Geoff said: “We go out every Saturday night and I always check our numbers as soon as we get home.

"Last Saturday was no different, I saw we hadn’t matched any of the six so I thought nothing more of it until I had an email the following day telling me there was ‘news about my ticket’.

“When I logged on, I couldn’t believe it. I just kept counting zeros to make sure I had it right. Judith thought it was a hoax!”

Geoff and Judith have been married for 42 years and have two daughters and two grandsons.

Thanks to their win, Geoff, who is a self-employed exhibition stand builder and Judith, who works from home, will be able to bring forward their retirement without worrying about counting the pennies.

Geoff said: “This means a hell of a lot to us. We’ve always worked hard but neither of us have a private pension so we would have had to be very careful with our money when we retired.

"Now, we can just relax and enjoy life, spending time with our daughters and grandsons.”

The married couple, who are passionate about travel are looking forward to taking several exotic holidays including trips to the Caribbean and Australia.

Also on the couple’s wish list is a Southampton season ticket and a new car for Geoff.

Geoff added: “I currently drive a work van so Judith was worried that when I retired we’d be sharing a car. She’s very pleased that it won’t come to that now,”

For every Lotto line played, players automatically receive a randomly-generated Lotto Millionaire Raffle entry, creating at least one guaranteed millionaire and 20 raffle winners of £20,000 in each draw.  During May Lotto has created two Millionaire Raffle winners in every draw.

The National Lottery changes the lives of winners like Geoff and Judith, as well as communities across the UK – players raise, on average, over £34million for National Lottery-funded projects every week.

In Southampton there have been over 860 individual National Lottery grants made to date, funding projects across the arts, sports, heritage, health, education, environment, charity and voluntary sectors.