Forty-five-year-old Kevin Green is one of the biggest landlords in the country. In just eight years he has built up a portfolio of over 300 houses and a nine-million-pound fortune. He’s agreed to swap his beautiful country home for a tiny rented bedsit in the heart of Barnstaple, looking for people and causes who may need his help. At the end of his stay, he’ll give away tens of thousands of pounds of his own money. On the way, Kevin finds himself having to confront his own personal tragedy before revealing himself as a Secret Millionaire .

Wednesday 23 September 2009
9:00pm, Channel 4

Thirty-six-year-old Liz Jackson lost her sight ten years ago. She has her own telemarketing business over 100 employees, and an MBE. Liz is spending eight days living undercover in South London, where she will be introduced to people who may need her help. She’ll meet people in the area who are not only living with disabilities and financial problems, but are helping others to live with theirs. Liz is inspired by the people she meets and is forced to confront her own disability, before giving away tens of thousands of pounds of her own money.

Wednesday 16 September 2009
9:00pm
Channel 4

Property developer Rob Lloyd leaves his home in rural Cheshire to go undercover in Belfast, Northern Ireland, a city struggling to recover after three decades of unrest. From his base in the Shankill Road – where one of the Troubles’ most notorious bombings took place in 1993 – Lloyd learns at first hand the personal cost of the conflict which tore apart the community. He sees how the residents are now rebuilding their lives, from a local boxing club to a housing project in Ardoyne, helping him …

Sunday April 19th Channel 4, 9PM

Jennifer Cheyne has turned a £2,000 loan from her father into a multi-million-pound fortune and one of Edinburgh’s top hairdressing empires. But Jennifer is leaving behind her luxurious lifestyle to go undercover in Aberfan, a former coal mining village in the Welsh valleys, which was the scene of the 1966 tragedy. Now the coal mines are long gone, leaving behind an ageing population. As she gets to know the local community, Jennifer is struck by the extraordinary lengths people go to for their neighbours. After an emotional few days, Jennifer must make some hard decisions about who to help.

Sunday 5 April 2009
9:00pm, Channel 4

Gary Eastwood started his business with a £100 loan from his grandfather. Now his hugely successful scrap metal business is worth £20 million. For nine days Gary lives a secret life in Blackpool where he looks for and is introduced to people who may need his help. He starts work as a volunteer in the local homeless shelter, where he meets a recovering heroin addict whose harrowing story forces Gary to confront the ghosts of his own past. Gary’s sisters were both victims of a heroin addiction that eventually resulted in their tragic deaths.

Sunday 29 March 2009
9:00pm, Channel 4

Back for a new seven-part series, the critically-acclaimed and award-winning The Secret Millionaire returns with a new batch of wealthy benefactors seeking to change the lives of others for the better.

Each week a millionaire leaves their luxury life behind, takes on a secret identity and lives undercover in a deprived area of the UK for ten days. Living on a limited budget with no mod-cons they must forge their own way in the community – working and volunteering alongside the locals and finding individuals and projects who they think deserve a cut of their fortune. Read more & comment »

Channel 4’s most successful new series in the 9pm slot last year, the Rose d’Or-winning The Secret Millionaire , returns with six brand new episodes. In each programme a millionaire goes undercover and assumes a new identity to enable them to live anonymously as part of the community before revealing who they really are. At the end of their ten-day visit, the millionaires reveal their true identity to the individuals and groups they have met during their stay and who they feel are the most deserving of their own hard-earned cash. Tonight’s millionaire is Gill Fielding who goes undercover in London’s East End.

Wednesday 7 November 2007
9:00pm

A cafe that was given £15,000 by millionaire Charan Gill as part of Channel 4’s Secret Millionaire programme, was closed down last month due to its failure to pay its bills.

Its such a shame that after being given the lifeline by Charan, this business couldn’t survive. But I suppose it shows that any amount of money can be plunged into a business, but if its not a viable prospect it will just be a waste of resources.

Channel 4, has announced that there will be a second season of the hit documentary series The Secret Millionaire.

The first series of The Secret Millionaire was the most popular new series on Channel 4 in the 9pm slot last year attracting audiences of 3.5million. Read more & comment »

Ever dreamt of having more money than you knew how to spend? Whose life would you transform with the money if you had the opportunity?

Each week, in this new five part series from the makers behind the multi-award-winning Faking It and Wife Swap , a different multi-millionaire searches for people whose lives he or she can change for the better. Each of our modern-day philanthropists must guarantee to give away tens of thousands of pounds of their own money. For ten days, the millionaires leave their wealthy lifestyle behind and go undercover to live in some of the UK’s toughest areas. They conceal their true identities and immerse themselves in communities with the aim of finding those people that they think deserve their help. On the last day of their visit, they reveal their secret and write their cheques.

Paul Williams started in business 25 years ago. He’s now worth £60 million and lives in a country mansion on the richest private estate in England. But for 10 days, Paul has agreed to say goodbye to his millionaire lifestyle and live undercover as part of the community on the Thorntree estate, Middlesbrough, one of the poorest areas in Britain. He wants to make a difference in people’s lives and give away some of his fortune. “When you’ve got a lot of money and wealth you do feel a little bit guilty. So one of the things for me, giving money away does, is to alleviate that guilt to some extent. It makes me feel better, it makes me feel I’m doing something and that I’m dealing with my wealth responsibly.”

But he’s not going to Middlesbrough alone. Tonight, The Secret Millionaire has decided to take his 20-year-old son Ben with him.

As a self made man, Paul tried to give Ben everything he himself didn’t have as a youngster. But now he feels it’s time to teach his son about financial responsibility and is hoping to show him what life is like without the finer things. “What I want Ben to learn from this is just what a lucky young man he is and how much he’s really got and what a privileged position he has in life”.

So father and son head north for Middlesborough to see how the other half lives. On the Thorntree estate nearly 60% of the residents aren’t working, over half the children leave school without any qualifications at all and the crime rate is 50% higher than the national average. On arrival at their new home, Paul and Ben are greeted by a local with the words “You don’t wanna live round here mate…. it’s full of heroin addicts mate, you’ll be burgled in a day”. Noticeably shocked but determined to continue their quest, Ben starts work as a volunteer in the local homeless shelter and Paul starts his search for businesses and people to invest in.

Just how easy will it be for Ben when he comes face to face with the harsh reality of drug addiction and poverty? And will Paul find anyone he believes to be worthy of some of his money? After an emotional visit, the pair finally reveal their identities and the true purpose of their stay. But how will the locals react?

The Secret Millionaire airs on Channel 4 on the 20/12/2006 at 21:00

Last year Charan Gill, the curry-house king of Scotland, sold his restaurant empire for £16 million pounds. He became one of the richest men in the country overnight. Now, he lives with his wife and family in his dream home. But Charan’s not always been used to having money. He moved to Glasgow from India when he was 9 years old and started out working in the shipyards at the age of 15. He spent the next 25 years learning about business and by the time he was in his 40s he owned 17 Indian restaurants. Today, Charan feels he wants to help others who haven’t been as fortunate as himself. “I’ve worked hard, but I know that there are a lot of people who have worked harder than me who are still on the poverty line. I hope I can do some good. I would like to think there’s more to me than just curry.”

This week, the 51-year-old Sikh becomes the third Secret Millionaire to go under cover and try to find people that he believes are worthy recipients for some of his fortune. He travels to Thetford, Norfolk, to join the thousands of unskilled workers who survive in rural Britain on the minimum wage. For the next ten days, he’s agreed to leave his millionaire lifestyle and start again with only £10 pounds in his pocket. As far as the locals are concerned he’s taking part in a documentary about people moving to the area hoping to start a new life. Unemployment levels in Thetford are low, but with most people working for the minimum wage, poverty levels are high, so it’s not going to be easy.

During his stay, Charan has to fend for himself. He lives in a small rented flat on a housing estate costing £60 per week, so he has to make money fast and after a visit to the local job centre he lands his first day’s work as a fruit packer in a factory earning £5.25 per hour. He moves from job to job daily and soon discovers more about what life is like for the low wage earners of Thetford. At the end of his first week, and 48 hours of hard labour, his pay check amounts to just over £200. It’s certainly not a fortune, but he has met some interesting people, like Morgan who spends his time working as a labourer so that he can spend the weekends sleeping on the floor of his one-bedroomed flat while his 3 children are visiting him. “Unfortunately the world is full of Morgans. If I was inclined to help people like that I would be just walking down the street and dishing out money because of the needs that they have. Everyone has those needs.”

Just how will Charan decide on who to give his cash to in a community where he feels so many people are in need? And when the proud Indian Scot finds himself working amongst the local immigrant population how will he react?

Next Week’s Secret Millionaire is 62-year-old John Elliott from Bishop Auckland – a life-long supporter of the Conservative Party and one of the richest people in England. He employs more than three hundred people at his factory making water coolers. John’s now one of the largest suppliers in the world, but life did not begin this way. He grew up in poverty two miles from where he lives now. His father died when he was a small child and his mother raised three children single-handedly.

This upbringing has left John with a real sense of what it is like to have nothing and he never takes his wealth for granted. “I did at one point”, says John, “think it may be good to get rid of it and start all over again, then there would be the real pressure of doing it again. A bit like getting to the end of the fish and chip queue and then going to the end and starting again. That would take some strength wouldn’t it?”

John is incredibly charitable, giving away thousands each year to different causes. But now he wants a more hands on approach to giving and feels he wants to get as close as possible to the people who really need it. “It’s very easy to write cheques out for organisations… but it is important to get out there and identify people with real needs”. This is why he has agreed to live undercover for ten days – leaving his lifestyle and even his identity behind to live in a small rented flat on the equivalent of state benefits in Kensington, Liverpool, one of the poorest parts of Britain. According to a Government report, the social and economic deprivation there is severe and deep rooted. Its residents have a 50% greater chance of dying earlier than the average person in England.

But John does not believe in spending or giving away money for the sake of it. He is very careful not to be wasteful or casual with his giving. So how easy will he find it to identify individuals who he feels are really deserving of his assistance? And, when faced with the realisation that he may have to widen his net to find deserving beneficiaries and look in places he would never normally consider worthy of his help, such as the local asylum centre, how will John react?

I just watched the Secret Millionaire on Channel 4 and was a bit baffled by the outcome.

I thought the show had a great idea behind it, and it is nice to see a reality show where someone, other than a celebrity, actually benefits.

I watched avidly, wondering who Ben Way, the twentysomething millionaire entrepreneur, would award his cash to. Would it former boxing champion James Cook, dedicated to keeping kids away from drugs? Or perhaps Wayne, a student with aspirations to sell his range of designer fashion? Or Ufu, the manager of the youth club who seemed to be running it on little more than his goodwill?

In the end Ben awarded cash to all three…a nice gesture, I’m sure all three appreciated it greatly. But didn’t it defeat the purpose of the show? I wonder if all the shows will follow this format? If so it kind of takes away the element of surprise doesn’t it?

THIS ARTICLE CONCERNS THE 2006 CHANNEL 4 SECRET MILLIONAIRE SERIES, FOR MORE UP TO DATE ARTICLES CLICK HERE.

Channel 4’s new five part documentary series begins on Wednesday the 29th November at 9pm.

Each week a different multi-millionaire searches for people whose lives he or she can change for the better. Each of our modern-day philanthropists must guarantee to give away thousands of pounds of their own money. For ten days, the millionaires leave their wealthy lifestyle behind and go undercover to live in some of the UK’s toughest areas. They conceal their true identities and immerse themselves in communities with the aim of finding those people that they think deserve their help. On the last day of their visit, they reveal their secret and write their cheques.

Ten years ago, aged just 16, Ben Way made a life changing business deal worth 25 million pounds, making him one of Britain’s youngest self-made millionaires. Six years later, he’d lost the lot. Now, aged 26, Ben has successfully rebuilt his fortune. But, now fully aware of how tough life can be when you hit rock bottom, he wants to find others who deserve a helping hand. “I’ve been incredibly lucky to have ended up on this side of the tracks. I see it a bit like Russian roulette. My life played Russian roulette with me. Fortunately I won and some people haven’t and I can find those people and change their lives.”

In the opening film, Ben says goodbye to his private plane, his central London bachelor pad and his fine dining to live on one of the toughest estates in London. He travels just seven miles across town to Hackney – one of the city’s most deprived areas – notorious for gang culture, violent crime and where nearly 60 percent of the kids grow up in single parent families. For ten days he works as a volunteer youth worker at the Pedro Club alongside its inspirational manager, Ufu, who greets Ben by saying, “welcome to murder mile.” During his stay, Ben lives in a room in a shared flat on the local estate.

But how easy will it be for Ben to befriend a group of youngsters and discover who is most deserving of his help? The kids at the club have a tremendous support and ‘father figure’ in Ufu, who dedicates so much of his time to them and the youth club. Ufu is greatly supported by James Cook, ex-British and European professional super middle weight boxing champion. For the past ten years he has been a local outreach worker, patrolling the streets looking for young people who are truanting or involved in drugs.

Ben struggles to decide who deserves his money, but after an emotional ten day visit he finally reveals his identity and the true purpose of his stay…. how will his new friends react?