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Mr Page's winning ticket shared Friday's overall EuroMillions jackpot of £113m with one other, which was bought in Spain.

Speaking at a press conference, Ms Laycock, 41, said: "It's so strange as I'd been out the night before with friends and I'd bought a ticket as well.

"We'd been talking about what we thought would happen if you won.

"I joked that the machine would explode, smoke would come out from it with ticker tape and glitter and six gold-painted Egyptian men would come out and carry me off. It was slightly different!"

We've got a lovely long list of people we're going to help and make their lives so much more comfortable

Lottery winner Justine Laycock

Mr Page, 43, was left shaking and speechless after checking his numbers online and woke his partner of eight years to break the news.

Ms Laycock said: "All he said was, 'I need you urgently, I need to show you something'.

"I thought something awful had happened but he took me to the computer. There it was on the screen.

"His hands were shaking so much he couldn't pick up the phone so I called the lottery line and they confirmed it was true. We were the £56 million winners."

Nigel Page gives his partner Justine Laycock a celebratory kiss

She went on: "We've got a lovely long list of people we're going to help and make their lives so much more comfortable.

"We couldn't have wished for this. It's amazing. We are going to utilise this 100%. We have family and friends who are very close and we are going to sort them out."

Mr Page, who runs a property maintenance business, and Ms Laycock, an estate agent, have three children from previous relationships - Mr Page's daughter Ella, 12, and Ms Laycock's son and daughter, Jacob, 11, and Georgia, 15.

The couple said they celebrated hitting the jackpot with a breakfast of bacon butties at the cafe in their local Waitrose, while they waited for the Camelot adviser to arrive.

Neither intends to return to work.

Matthew Fuller, Ms Laycock's boss at estate agency Cain and Fuller, said she phoned him on Sunday lunchtime to tell him the news.

"She said: 'You'll never guess what but I've won the Lottery,'" he recalled.

"The second line of the conversation was: 'I won't be in on Monday'."

A tarantula - a winning pet?

Mr Page, a keen skydiver, is considering keeping himself busy by building "a wind tunnel so I can have a play in that".

Meanwhile the couple's children have been talking about potential new pets - a pony and a tarantula.

The jackpot surpasses the £91m paid out in November last year which was shared between two UK tickets.

Les Scadding and wife Sam, from south Wales, and the Lucky Seven syndicate, from Liverpool, who both banked a cheque for £45.5m, now stand in joint second place on the National Lottery's Rich List.

Based on figures released when the Sunday Times Rich List was published last April, Mr Page and his partner will be wealthier than Oasis stars Noel and Liam Gallagher (£52m), film director Guy Ritchie (£50m) and actor Sir Michael Caine (£45m).