A GREAT grandfather whose family syndicate from County Durham have scooped a cool half-a-million pounds on the National Lottery game Thunderball dreamt the night before they were going to be rich.

Walter Knowles, a retired miner, could now be in line for a new bungalow once the family have decided how to spend the cash.

The 85-year-old, his son Gary, 60, and two daughters, Christina, 58 and Joanne, 52, play Lotto and Thunderball every week and always played with Walter’s wife and their mother, Eva.

She passed away in February last year, but the family continued to play four lucky dip lines of Thunderball in her memory.

Christina said: “My dad’s dream has come true. We also believe that our mam is looking down on us.

“It is just life changing this amount of money and wonderful to think that we can now get a bungalow for my dad and Joanne, who is his full time carer. We still can’t really believe this has happened.”

The winning ticket was bought from Stephensons Newsagents in Peterlee, County Durham, on May 28.

Christina added: “When Joanne and I went to check the ticket in our local newsagents and the assistant said we should call Camelot as there was good news we just couldn’t believe it.

“It is so unbelievable – never did we believe as a family that something like this could happen to us. It is wonderful. That is the best word to describe how we are all feeling right now.”

National Lottery players raise more than £36million for worthy projects each week.

Last year 60 grants worth £3million were distributed to National Lottery funded projects in the Durham local authority area covering the arts, sports, heritage, health, education, environment, charity and voluntary sectors.

Examples include Crook Nursery School, in Crook, which received funding to create a sheltered outdoor area for children, and Teesdale YMCA, which received a grant to run workshops for young people who live in rural areas and have been unemployed for a long period of time.