A GRANDMOTHER who has been a loyal reader of the Oxford Mail for more than four decades won’t have to worry about paying her household bills for three months thanks to this paper.

Heather Warland, from Begbroke, near Kidlington, has won a competition to cover the cost, up to £2,000, of her bills out of 417 entries.

The 70-year-old said: “It's marvellous. I actually thought it was a scam at first when someone called to say I'd won.

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"There’s been a lot of that going on and especially with us being pensioners I thought it was best to be sure.”

To thank readers who have supported this paper during lockdown the Oxford Mail ran a competition with the chance to win three months’ worth of household bills – including supermarket shopping, electricity, gas and council tax.

Oxford Mail:

All readers had to do was attach four out of the five differently numbered tokens to the entry form printed in this paper in July, answer the qualifying question and send their entry to the address stated on the entry form.

Mrs Warland said she thought 'why not?' when she came across the competition in the paper last month but did not expect to win.

She added not having to worry about household bills for three months was ‘really great’ especially amid the coronavirus outbreak.

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It is not the first time Mrs Warland has won an Oxford Mail competition.

The grandmother-of-one said: “I’m not a lucky person generally but I did win an outdoor table and chairs about 40 years ago from the paper.

“I can’t even remember what the competition was now. They lasted for a long time.”

Mrs Warland and her husband John, both retired, have been buying the Oxford Mail for 45 years.

She said: “My husband likes the sport and I enjoy reading the local news.”

Oxford Mail:

Not only do the couple, who have been married since 1972, avidly read the paper but they also save copies for Mrs Warland’s brother-in-law who moved to Selsey in West Sussex 11 years ago.

She said: “We give them to him when he visits. He’s got a lot of reading to do due to lockdown.

"We’ve got four or five months of papers stored in the garage.”

Before retiring around five years ago, a year after her husband, Mrs Warland was a receptionist for a BMW dealership.

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During lockdown she said the couple have been keeping busy with gardening and going on an hour-long walk every day.

She said: "It has been hard but we've kept active and that's helped."

The couple's two daughters both live locally, one in Long Hanborough and the other in Bicester, also helped deliver the couple shopping during the height of the pandemic.