IT will be a cracking Christmas for a champion hen breeder and his family who scooped more than £500,000 on the National Lottery.

The Waterworths from Leigh came up with the winning combination of six numbers - 7,11,15, 21, 35 and 47 - in Saturday's draw to earn themselves a £530,769 share of the jackpot.

Grandparents Muriel Waterworth aged 59, and husband Andrew, 57, daughter Debra Hampton, 40, and sons Jason, 35, and Andrew, 32 - live within 500 yards of each other in the Plank Lane area.

Mrs Waterworth was watching the draw on television and when the first three numbers came out she calmly told her husband "we've won another tenner. She said: "When the others rolled up I jumped up and shouted I'm up'. He said don't be daft'. He didn't believe me. It was such a shock. We just kept looking at each other and laughing then went round to Jason's to check the numbers again because our teletext wasn't working."

After a cheque presentation on Wednesday at the Marriot Hotel and Country Club at Worsley the happy family are planning to pay-off their mortgages and enjoy their best ever Christmas.

Andrew, who is planning to retire in a couple of years, can now afford to spend a little more of his hobby of champion hen breeding.

The winning ticket was one of a line of five the family has been placing twice a week for the past 11 years and was bought from Canning's newsagents in Leigh where to date three jackpot winners have bought tickets and prize money has totalled over £11.5 million.

Sue Canning said: "It's great for Leigh. We have now had three jackpot winners and a five balls and bonus, what are the odds of that? We must be doing something right. A lot of people buy their tickets here because they think we are a lucky shop - and we've got the sales right. It's just a pity our own syndicate can't pull off a big win."