A YORK seamstress plans to splash out on a Gucci watch and sunglasses after sewing up a lottery win.

Eileen Southern and two colleagues from Droopy and Browns Fashions, in Blake Street, scooped £72,325 on the Lotto draw held on Saturday after matching five numbers plus the bonus ball. They will each receive £24,108.

Eileen, who lives at Cawood, said staff at Maynews Newsagents, who sold her the ticket, always joked that they would never win, but now they had had the last laugh.

"It hasn't sunk in yet," she said.

"I walked into the sitting room half way through the draw and saw that I had three numbers. At that point I thought 'oh, we've won £10 - that's nice'.

"By the time I realised we had four and then five, I was so excited that I missed the bonus ball and had to call friends to check what it was.

"I then rang Val right away but she didn't believe me."

Val is fellow winner Valerie Hardy, 62, from Leeds, who plans to buy a diamond bracelet. She watched the draw but still didn't realize she had won.

"Eileen is forever joking about, so of course I didn't believe her when she told me - even though I was watching the draw myself!" she said.

"It didn't sink in until I checked the numbers on Teletext at around midnight."

The other winner wished to remain anonymous.

The women's winning numbers, which they have used for the last three years, were 5, 8, 9, 26, 44 and the bonus ball was 16.

Updated: 14:55 Wednesday, June 09, 2004