HARCOURT WALKES is now $2 920 000 richer.Barbados’ latest millionaire collected his winnings from The Barbados Lottery today.The 63-year-old taxi operator from Bagatelle Yard Gap, St James, said the news hit him hard, albeit in a good way.“I was going through the door when the numbers came up and I told my wife they sounded like mine, so I ran to the car for the ticket. I had a pain in my chest when I saw the numbers. I had to take all sorts of salts then I drove all around, I couldn’t sleep,” he said.Walkes said he had a system he used to play Mega 6, one which revolved around his mother’s name, Stella. However, he said he recently made a modification, which netted the big win.“I play numbers according to my mother’s name but I saw a different way to spell it in a magazine, “Stalla” so I played according to that,” he said.Walkes, who has six children and 12 grand children, said he plans to build houses for his family on his more than 7 200 square metre plot of land and “make a gated community”.“I used to pray I would get this money so I could do that before I died. I have been playing lotto since it started, and every time I passed the lotto building I used to say ‘one day I will get in’,” he said.In the short term, Walkes said he would continue to drive his taxi as he “couldn’t leave out what built me”. (CA)
