A RUNCORN mum who became a millionaire earlier this year turned Santa to bring laughter and joy to autistic youngsters.

Kelly Caldwell gave sack fulls of gifts to young people at Halton Autistic Family Support Group at their new family centre in Runcorn.

She won £1 million in the EuroMillions Millionaire raffle in April. Kelly, aged 30, said: “To see how excited they were gave me real pleasure. My friend has a little boy who is autistic.

“I wanted to give something back to the community.

“This charity does so much for autistic children and their families, I want to raise awareness and tell everyone about their great work.”

Speaking for the first time since her big win, Kelly revealed that she is getting married to her fiance, Jason Massey, aged 41, next year.

She has bought a new house, treated her grandparents to a cruise and her mum, Diane, from Runcorn to two holidays in Egypt and helped her dad, John, buy a new house in Widnes.

Kelly, who has a three and a half-year-old daughter, Hollie, has worked as an air stewardess at Easyjet for seven years.

She said: “We’ve bought our own house which meant we could move out of my mum’s. We’d never have been able to buy our own home without this win. We now have space to live as a little family.

“I only gave up work a month ago because I wanted to spend more time with my little girl. “We’re hoping to get married at the end of next year. We are planning to go abroad hope It’s not going to be a big thing.

“The money hasn’t changed me. We’re not going mad at Christmas with fancy presents, just buying the same old things.

“My little girl was spoilt rotten when we won so she will just have the usual selection of presents.”

Her fiance, Jason, an assistant project manager at B&Q, said: “I still can’t believe it. I keep waking up and expecting someone to tell us that it has not really happened.”

Halton Autistic Family Support Group looks after more than 100 autistic children and young people and their families.

The charity received £7,000 National Lottery funding from the Big Lottery Fund in September.

Ciaran Shanahan, the charity’s development manager, said: “I would like to thank The National Lottery for all their support.

“They helped us to buy building materials, equipment, games and various other items. “This is the first time we’ve had our own base.”

The family centre at 9-11 High Street offers drop-in sessions for mums and tots during the day and a youth club and social centre in the evenings. It also has a charity shop.