WHEN 16-year-old Callie Rogers won £1.9m on the lottery, she gave up her job in a supermarket and spent her days planning exotic holidays and splashing out on designer clothes. She spent tens of thousands on gifts for family and friends safe in the knowledge she need never work again. But eight weeks after giving birth to a son, Kian, she has decided she is bored and has gone back to work.Callie, now 18, is earning £4.85 an hour - just above the minimum wage for her age - as a part-time receptionist at a friend's signwriting firm in Whitehaven, Cumbria. Her father and stepmother, who have fallen out with her several times since her win, have agreed to look after the baby during the day.
'She was getting fed up doing nothing all day except shop,' said a friend. 'So she thought going back to work was the perfect solution. It's not that she needs the money, she just wants to get out of the house.'
Callie shares her four-bedroom home in Workington with jobless boyfriend Nicky Lawson, 24. Her friends dismiss claims made by Lawson earlier this year that Callie has only £400,000 left after squandering the rest and say she is not under pressure to return to work.
'Even after Kian came along she felt unfulfilled,' said one. 'Most people think she is mad but for Callie the thought of going back to work is the most exciting thing she has done in months.'
Sean Cully, one of the partners in the signwriting firm First Images, said last night: 'It's a great compliment that Callie wants to work for us when she has all that money. She is well liked and has been getting on well with the job.'
Callie's life has turned into something of a soap opera since she became Britain's second-youngest lottery winner, scooping £1,875,000 in June 2003. At the time she was earning £3.60 an hour working as a checkout girl.
The most recent drama centred around the paternity of her son. She split up with Lawson whilst heavily pregnant after he claimed he was not the father and allegedly siphoned money from her bank account.
Their fairy-tale wedding was cancelled and he was charged with theft and deception to the tune of £53,000 but Callie later dropped the charges. Lawson repaid her by trying to sell his story of their 15-month relationship to newspapers.
Callie was seeing 25-year-old Gary Fidler at the time of her win, but dumped him two weeks later when he tried to rekindle a relationship with an ex-girlfriend. He allegedly demanded £20,000 to compensate him for giving up his job in a factory.
Her next boyfriend, mechanic Simon Winthorpe, disappeared with a £7,000 car and £3,000 she had given him to be her chauffeur, after barely a fortnight.
