Julie Bowes-Shorten, aged 50, has suffered form cancer for over five years and regularly undergoes intense chemotherapy. She plays bingo every fortnight but never really expected to win big. However, when she visited the Mecca Bingo club on Aylsham Road, Norwich, she was the lucky winner of £100,000.

“I called house on forty numbers, which is really low so I thought I would win something, but I was stunned when they said I had won £100,000,” she said. “My friend had to tell me three times before it sank in.”

“I did have a feeling it could be my lucky day, when I left home I said to my husband, Daniel, 'I think I might win tonight', but not that much. I didn't think bingo was a big money game”, she added.

For this mother of three grown-up children and four grandchildren, this win came at just the right time.

“I had to give up work five years ago because of the pain caused by the chemotherapy, and Daniel had taken the last five weeks off work to look after me, so money was getting really tight,” she said.

Mrs Bowes-Shorten has to spend five days in hospital every three weeks for chemotherapy treatment for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. She has suffered from cancer three times since first being diagnosed in 2002, and doctors have told her it could easily come back again.

“Because of the chemotherapy I can't manage to do very much as I never have much energy, playing bingo is just about the only thing I can manage to do with friends,” she said.

She has no idea what she is going to spend the money on but her “children and grandchildren are going to get some extra special presents this Christmas,” she said. “In the New Year we will sit down and have a proper think what to spend the money on.”

In my opinion, nobody deserves this win more than Julie, who said; “I won't let anything stop me doing what I want to do - not even cancer”.