By Meg Jorsh

Last updated 12:01, Thursday, 03 July 2008

A pensioner struck it lucky on Monday night with a £27,000 bingo win.

Seventy-nine-year-old Ada Borrowdale, of Gayle Avenue, Shap, scooped the jackpot at the Opera Bingo Club in Penrith.

She plans to use the money to help her family, including eight children, 13 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

She said: “It hasn’t really sunk in yet. I’ve never had that kind of money in my life.”

When her final number was drawn, Ada was in such a state of shock that a friend had to shout on her behalf.

She added: “They wouldn’t believe me at first. They thought I was joking”.

The win came just a week after her brother’s death at 81. Ada had nursed him for 15 months through liver cancer.

“People said I deserved this with what I’d been through and how I’d helped him”, she said.

“I think he would have been more thrilled than I am”.

She had been playing at the Penrith club for 10 years when she scooped the National Bingo prize.

Opera manager Ethel Nicholl said: “It’s very exciting when you have a big win in the club. Everyone is really happy for her”.

Ada worked at the K Shoes factory in Shap for almost 19 years, until her retirement at 63.

She has lived in her current house for 54 years, moving there when her first son was four months old.