Six women from a friends group who worked together at Galashiels factory has scooped almost half a million pounds in the National Lottery jackpot. The women matched five numbers and the bonus ball this Wednesday.

The six, Jean Bell, Irene Kirk, Janet McCall, Rosemary Thomson, Wilma Turnbull and Meggy Walker won between them 429.807 pounds, which comes at 71.634 for each of the women. The group was started gambling a decade ago at Sykes Global Services factory, despite the fact that Rosemary, Irene and Jean are all retired, the group never stopped playing twice a week together. Wilma (48) is the youngest of the group and had this to say: “We are all taking our time to decide how to spend the jackpot money. We started the syndicate when we all worked together at McQueen’s. There’s only three of us left at the factory but we’ve all stayed in touch and kept the syndicate going over the years. We have had a couple of smaller wins in the past, I think around 100 pounds was the most we have won, but nothing like this. It has taken a day or two to sink in.”