UK millionaire hermit Maddison, who hit record jackpot, dies
In mid-December, Scottish media reportedthat the strangest millionaire in the British Isles has passed away. In the 1990s, he and a friend hit the then-record jackpot of 22.6 million pounds sterling (about 53 million pounds sterling, or six billion rubles at today's exchange rate). Since then, the lottery winner led a secluded life, and journalists tried to find out at least something about him. Lenta.ru looks into the mysterious story of the hermit Paul Maddison.
Friends constantly played the lottery with the same numbers
The names of 45-year-old Paul Maddison and his 32-year-old friend Mark Gardiner spread throughout the world's publications in 1995. Together they owned Croft Glass, a window installation company in Hastings, East Sussex. Their company was not a market leader, but it fully provided for its owners. Both men had wives and children, and the families spent a lot of time together.
In 1995, in addition to going to pubs and going on vacation together, friends came up with a new entertainment – they started playing the lottery every week, and they bought an expensive ticket for 50 pounds sterling and always bet on the same numbers. Luck smiled on them surprisingly quickly.
We are extremely lucky. We won a few weeks later. And even after the victory, Paul's wife said that 50 pounds a week on the lottery was a terrible waste of money. It was very funny
Photos of the happy winners pouring champagne on each other were all over the tabloids. By today's standards, a $22 million win doesn't seem like much (especially compared to the billion-dollar jackpots of some lotteries), but in the mid-1990s it became a real event. For Great Britain in the 90s, this was a record jackpot received on one ticket.
Maddison left the business and cut himself off from the world
The friends divided the winnings equally and plunged into a new life. Gardiner immediately began to behave like a lottery winner who has no idea what to do with the fortune that has fallen on him. He bought two local football clubs in Hastings, two houses in Barbados, an Aston Martin car and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
Maddison decided to retire and moved to the Scottish city of Perth “for the sake of a quiet life.” And then something happened that still remains a mystery to his friends. Paul became a real recluse. He used to be a cheerful, sociable person, but after moving he stopped communicating with almost all his acquaintances. Gardiner admitted that he completely lost touch with Maddison about 20 years ago.
He moved to Scotland and then we lost all contact. But I still adore him. He was a very good person. (…) It’s a shame that we no longer communicate, but he chose a different life, drew a line under the old one
While Gardiner’s financial adventures entertained tabloid readers for a long time, almost nothing was heard about Maddison. However, just a few months after the victory, information appeared that he divorced his wife Ruth, with whom he joyfully danced the cancan in photographs of the presentation of a check for 22 million.
Moreover, in the Daily Mirror article it saysthat she didn’t just leave Maddison, but ran away with her lover, taking a million pounds from the winnings. If this is true, then there was no open investigation into the theft or anything similar.
In 1997, Maddison married Scotswoman Evelyn McGillavry, who initially worked as a cleaner and gardener at his six-bedroom mansion. They then bought the 16th-century estate Robgill Tower in Dumfries and Galloway. Maddison turned this ancient house, which the media called a “castle,” into a real impregnable fortress
The building is already surrounded on all sides by rocks and forest. The millionaire installed surveillance cameras throughout the territory. There were almost no servants in the house, all gates and gates were opened using remote control, and the owners communicated with the outside world exclusively by intercomalmost without leaving the estate and without appearing in front of the neighbors.
When someone did try to interview Maddison, he replied through the intercom: “I have absolutely nothing to say to the media. I want to be left alone. I just want privacy, you know?”
Maddison could have joined a cult
Maddison's new home was so well fenced off from the outside world that another famous recluse, the famous American singer Michael Jackson, was said to be interested in him. However, it is unknown whether he actually tried to buy the house.
The behavior of the newly minted millionaire might indeed seem strange, because his former acquaintances described him as a real cheerful fellow and a very sociable person.
We laughed all the time at work. I can't say a single bad word about him. I was just shocked that he was no longer there. Real sadness. He left too early
However, it was Gardiner in one interview reportedthat in Scotland his old friend joined the Jehovah's Witnesses (an organization recognized as extremist and banned in Russia – approx. “Tapes.ru”). This could explain many of the oddities in Maddison’s behavior, such as his reclusiveness and reluctance to communicate with people from the past.
After news of his marriage to Evelyn McGillavry in 1997, the next time the British heard of the reclusive millionaire was two years later, and it was a very strange story. In 1999, Maddison staged a noisy trial with a laundry located next to his house. He demanded from the company exactly 953 pounds sterling for a certain antique silk bedspread. The millionaire said that the laundry not only did not clean the tea stain, but also gave it a pink tint, which completely ruined it.
The defendant stated that he warned the client of the danger because no cleaning instructions were included with the bedspread. This strange story for a long time was the only information about Maddison, whom all the tabloids even then began to call an eccentric millionaire hermit.
In recent years, no one knew anything about Maddison
In 2008, Maddison and his wife sold Robgill Tower for £2.8 million and moved to Perth. McGillavry then spoke to the press and stated that moving would be the next step in their lives.
It was a wonderful house and we were very happy in it, but now it has become too big. We sometimes moved bedrooms from one space to another just for variety. Now it's time to make our next dream come true. And this house is a true lottery winner's fantasy. Maybe some other lucky person will buy it
After this, the couple disappeared from the press. In early 2023, it became known that McGillavry, who was 62 years old, had left this world. Maddison, 73, followed in November. It is not yet known what kind of fortune they owned in recent years and who will get it.
Mark Gardiner safe squandered his £11 million. It cannot be said that he was left with nothing, but the win did not become a springboard for him into a new life. He squandered the money on expensive purchases and bad investments, got divorced and remarried several times, and now lives again in his native Hastings.
He managed to invest the last two million in the same company Croft Glass, which he and Maddison once founded. Now she feeds him again – however, now the former millionaire has to go on his own to measure windows, because he has few employees. In addition, he plays the lottery every week, just like almost 30 years ago. And he bets on the same numbers that brought him and Maddison success in 1995. Maybe you'll be lucky again.
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