Residents of Benwick were treated to a �30,000 dream lunch today after a woman, who has lived in the village her whole life, won a national competition.

Emily Shepperson, 25, of Heron Way, entered drinks company Oasis’ quest to improve the lunchtimes of the nation and triumphed after suggesting the ideal afternoon would involve her whole community.

The event was held in her aunts’ field with food, games and music organised to keep the crowd, expected to reach 500, entertained.

She said: “I thought it would be a nice thing to do to get everyone together and make it more of a community thing which is why we kept it to the people of Benwick.

“It was amazing to be a finalist and then to be picked after getting the most votes was great.”

“I’d love to do something like this once a year and get everybody together because my grandad said they used too do things like this regularly.”

The mother of two, who has become addicted to entering competitions while on maternity leave with eight-month-old Harvey, used social networking site Facebook to drum up support and received votes from as far away as Australia.

“I enter about 100 competitions a day and I’ve won a fair bit recently but this is my biggest win by far,” she said.

“I love the buzz of winning and it beats just sitting and watching TV all day. This has really put Benwick on the map.”

To create the picnic Oasis used 400 burgers, 400 sausages, 800 baps, 600 tomatoes, 100 lettuces, 100kg of coleslaw and 400 corn cobs.

Rebecca Hirst, Oasis’ Marketing Manager, said: “Emily wanted to do something fabulous and bring the whole of Benwick together so we worked with her to design today.

“Her idea was especially generous and it was such a kind thing to do. Today was all about her village and not just herself.”

Oasis surprised their winner by assembling a giant mural of Emily’s face on the ground and taking photos from the air for her to keep once the day had finished.

She said: “When they showed me the picture I thought it was great.

“I wonder how many people realised they’d been standing on my face!”