So how do you keep a £38 million lottery win a secret?

That's the question on the lips of telly addicts as ITV's new six-part series, At Home with the Braithwaites, hits the screen.

Avid viewers watched last week as Mrs Braithwaite (Amanda Redman) won £38 million on the fictitious Euro lottery and kept it a secret from her penny-pinching husband and wayward children because she thinks the cash will ruin them.

Westcliff lottery winner Doug Wood is an expert on keeping a big win secret after he kept his £2.68 million fortune under wraps for ten months.

He said: "I managed to keep it secret from the media for quite a while. I just told my brother, sister and close friends and asked them not to tell anyone.

"I needed time to get my head around winning such a lot of money. I had gone from living in a one-bedroom bedsit on £44 dole money every week to earning £2,000 a week just in interest."

"Fortunately, I had worked in stockbroking so, unlike a lot of winners, I knew what millions of pounds could buy," he added.

Doug, 63, will never forget the day in 1995 when he hit the jackpot.

He said: "I'm not a yelling and screaming type of person. I rang my sister about 8.15pm after I registered my win with Camelot. When I said I'd won the lottery, she congratulated me for winning a tenner.

"When I told her I had all six numbers, I heard a thud where she slumped down onto the stairs. I couldn't even go around there for a celebratory drink as I was waiting for Camelot to ring back. I couldn't get the smile off my face."

He added: "That is why the Braithwaites story is a bit silly. There is no way she would be able to keep a £38 million win to herself. She just couldn't. Her whole demeanour would change. At the very least, she'd have to tell her husband."

Doug's secret finally came out while on holiday in South Africa. He met up with a group of Welsh men who were part of the Surf Lifesaving Society of Great Britain.

They needed money to get to a competition in New Zealand and on his return to England, Doug wrote out a £20,000 cheque.

When he handed it over, the world's press were waiting to find out more about the generous benefactor and the secret was out.

Since then, Doug has given or pledged around £1.2 million of his win, including £25,000 to the Salvation Army and the Royal British Legion, plus £500 a year to budding Olympic gymnast Pascal Craymer, of Thorpe Bay, who somersaulted down Southend High Street for Doug.

(Right) Secret riches - Amanda Redman, who plays Alison Braithwaite and Lynda Bellingham, who plays her accountant

£2.68m winner - Doug Wood

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.