Won Lottery? Move to Dartford

We've all got expensive dreams of what we'd do with a few million from winning the Lottery: spend it, largely. Fast cars, a personal jet, maybe your own desert island. Not so the down-to-earth Mackrill family from Crayford.

There is one lifelong ambition that tea lady Valerie Mackrill and her husband Malcolm, a retired roofer, can now achieve thanks to their winning £3.8 million on the Lottery. They intend to leave Crayford far behind and move...to Dartford.

To the discerning eye, there is, at first glance, not a lot to choose between them: one in Bexleyheath, the other in Kent, a mile and a half apart on the south side of the Thames. But to the Mackrills of Crayford, Dartford is their dream of Mecca, their Nirvana: paradise on earth. So Dartford it is then.

Or "Historic Dartford" as the borough council's sign greets the traveller on a scenic route into the town from the A2 past the corporation tip. Historic? Not to look at, alas. Henry VIII did clap up Anne of Cleeves in a priory there for a period after she displeased him, and Revolting Peasant Wat Tyler is said to have dropped in for a quick pint. Hiram Maxim, inventor of the automatic machine-gun moved there and Richard Trevithick, the real inventor of the steam locomotive, died there. Rolling Stone Mick Jagger did go to school at Dartford Grammar, and Margaret Thatcher stood for Parliament there in the 1950s - and lost.

But that is Dartford's claim to history and fame. York or Chester it is not. "Well, it's got more shops than Crayford," said Mrs Mackrill defensively. Er, hardly. While Bluewater - Europe's largest shopping centre - is located a couple of miles outside the town, Dartford itself has depressingly few shops that would be recognised anywhere outside Dartford. It has jewellers, hairdressers, charity shops and pawnbrokers. It has Fani's Sandwiches, Fat Sam's Eatery and Russells fish and chips. It has a B&Q and an MFI, Boots and the Co-op.

The Mackrills will begin house-hunting this week and then close the front door of their £90-a-week housing association semi in Crayford for the last time. Mrs Mackrill, a 51-year-old mother of three and grandmother, said: "It's been our dream to move to Dartford," adding: "We'd like a nice bungalow - but we don't want anything too flash."

Given that Mr Mackrill, 52, was forced to retire from his job through ill-health, while his wife has been serving tea and home-made bread pudding at Crayford auction rooms for years, it's easy to see how they might be tempted by sunnier climes.

But each to their own. Mrs Mackrill clearly likes it. It was to Dartford she went shopping the last time she won the Lottery. Just before Christmas she reckoned her numbers had netted £1,720. "We went to Dartford and spent the lot buying presents for the kids," said Mr Mackrill. Then they found they'd only won £66.

The couple's three daughters - Wendy, Donna and Mandy - have already been touring large detached houses and BMW showrooms, and Wendy may not be too far from her parents. Said Mr Mackrill: "My youngest has already been to Dartford looking at three to four bedroom houses for herself. The cheeky cow."