A TEACHER is celebrating after winning a Gazette competition which will allow her to keep in contact with her grandchildren who live 150 miles away.

Mary Suffield, from Colchester, has won the Keeping You Connected competition, which aimed to help keep people together during the coronavirus pandemic.

A telephone conversation can really do wonders for our wellbeing and if we are able to see our loved ones on a video call it is even better.

To kick start the year, we gave our valued readers the chance to win a Samsung mobile phone and a Fire HD tablet to help stay connected during lockdown.

All they had to do was send in 12 different Gazette front page mastheads and answer a qualifying question.

Then all the entries went into a prize draw, and Mary came out as the winner.

But Mary, who has been buying the Gazette since 1978, thought it was a scam when she first got the call to tell her she had won.

Mary said: “I didn’t believe it at first, I thought it might be some sort of scam call.

“But it’s absolutely amazing, I’m so lucky to have won and I’m so glad I entered.

“Apart from a few raffles here and there, I have never won anything in my life.

“I have been getting the Evening Gazette, what is now the Daily Gazette, since 1978.

“I will definitely be entering all the competitions now I have won.”

Both Mary’s sons and grandchildren live in Lincoln, so the tablet means she is able to speak to them whenever she wants.

Mary said: “I have used the tablet and it’s great and really handy.

“I use it to contact my grandchildren and to take photos to send to them and received them.

“It’s also great for looking things up on Google.

“My sons live up in Lincoln, so I like to keep in contact with them as much and as regularly as possible.”

Mary, who is a part-time teacher at St Johns C of E Primary School in Colchester, has been working from home throughout the pandemic.

She added: “My phone was on its last legs, so the new one has come at just the right time.

“It’s definitely an upgrade from the one I have at the moment.

“The tablet is such a handy size, it’s not like a bigger one, it’s a smaller one so it fits perfection in handbag.”