I married four times after winning £22 million in lottery… it took years for me to realize a mistake

It took years for a lottery winner who married four times after winning to realize he had made a huge mistake.

Mark Gardiner split a whopping £22,590,829 payday with glazing firm business partner Paul Maddison in 1995.

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But in an attempt to form a protective ‘steel ring’ he bought four friends a £100,000 house each before they abandoned him.

Now 61 and living in Battle, East Sussex, he said Mail+: “It was complicated. They were called lowlifes and bullied by their friends.

“You can’t win in some ways. If you keep your promise money close, you’re in a tight spot, if you buy a round in the pub, you’re a flash Harry.”

The consequences were not the only problem Mark faced.

He recalled receiving “bags” of mail from people begging for money.

They included ex-girlfriends, friends and even women who claimed he had given them a love child.

Mark was only 32 years old at the time and was in the middle of a divorce from his third wife Kim, mother of a now 31-year-old daughter.

He was also engaged to wife number four Brenda, with whom he had another daughter, now 28.

Nearly thirty years later, Mark says he is grateful that he decided to keep working.

It also led to a ‘chance’ meeting with his first wife Bridget – his childhood sweetheart – whom he met again while cleaning her windows 20 years after their divorce.

Explaining their second innings – which this time lasted ten years – he said: ‘You can’t buy Bridget.

“We got married too early, we both agreed, but we knew we were for each other, if that makes sense.

“And in a way I should apologize to the other women, because they were never for me, and in some ways I spent all those other years trying to find my way back to her.”

And while Mark hasn’t said much about fast cars and women, he does have some pearls of wisdom.

He explained: “The ad says ‘It could be you’ – but say it goes: ‘This could be you: arguing with your sister; angry at your mother; sued by your ex-fiance’.

“Are you going to run out and buy that ticket?”

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