A MOVE from Bolton has left a couple quids in after they scooped £177,000 in the Lottery's Postcode Millions draw.

Stephen Mason, who moved from the town to Blackburn with wife Michelle Hall, won after setting up a £10 a month direct debit to play the lottery.

The astonished businessman had forgotten about his entry until he got a phone call from the draw organisers to say he was one of the winners from the Fernhurst area of Blackburn who live in the BB2 4 postcode area.

Officials would only tell him he had won more than £1,000 until the draw announcement on Saturday.

"I had it in my mind for two weeks that it was £1,000," said 49-year-old Mr Mason, who runs First Choice Fitted Bedrooms in Darwen.

"We never usually win anything. My life is going to be so much easier from now on. I took the dog for a walk and it felt like I had retired and the money pressures had disappeared."

The father-of-two has already allocated the cash, with priorities being paying off the mortgage on the family home, school fees for youngest son Jake and helping oldest son Lukas with university costs.

And the family are planning to fulfill a dream of replacing their camper van with a smart new motorhome.

"As a family we love going camping and we’ve been doing it for 15 years," said Mr Mason

"We were meant to be in Cumbria this bank holiday weekend with our friends and their families, but winning this amount of money more than makes up for missing out.

"We said if we won anything big we would buy everyone a camper van and I've already started receiving text messages so I think I'll have to turn my phone off.

"I can’t believe that we’ll finally be able to buy a motorhome and our dream is to travel around Europe with the kids."

Bromley Cross-born Mr Mason and wife Michelle, 42, moved from Egerton 14 years ago - a relocation which, thanks to the lottery, has proved to be very profitable.

But Mr Mason says he hopes to return to Egerton one day and it might be a possibility thanks to the win.

"I could keep doing the postcode lottery and then I might win again with a Bolton postcode," he laughed.