Tycoon Richard North gives away £100,000 on Secret Millionaire

Toy tycoon Richard North is used to living in the lap of luxury in his six-bedroom house.

But he says he jumped at the chance to swap his millionaire lifestyle in the West Midlands for a tatty terraced house on one of Britain's most run-down estates.

He also paid up to £100,000 for the privilege — the budget he took with him to give away to people doing good works on the estate where he was staying.

The emotional story of Richard's journey to the Ely area of Cardiff will be told on Channel Four's Secret Millionaire on Sunday.

The programme gives the rich and successful the chance to give something back by going undercover and finding out how communities in rundown areas pull together to help each other.

Richard, of Wolverhampton, runs the £35 million company Wow!Stuff, based on the Wolverhampton Science Park, which invents gifts and toys that sell around the world. He moved to an end-of-terrace house for a week to film the programme, during which he lived on the equivalent of benefit payments.

But he kept his cheque book in his pocket and will be seen giving away up to £100,000 — £60,000 of his own money and £40,000 of commitments from his company.

Richard said: "The area I moved to looked more like Beirut or Northern Ireland in the Troubles. But when you get over that and start talking to people you find some extraordinary people who are warm and welcoming. Their spirit reminded me of people from the Black Country."

The millionaire says he found the week emotional and the experience uncovered a secret that had been buried in his subconscious for more than 20 years.

Even his wife and family are unaware of the revelation, which comes in the climax of this Sunday's programme.

He said today: "The reason for not sharing my experience with my closest family and friends ahead of the show is solely because I feel unable to do so.

"I don't know why but think it may be embarrassment and guilt of what happened some years ago. I don't know how I will feel when it airs but I believe it has helped the people I met, and hope it will help me."

A karate expert and father of four, Richard has made a business out of fun in recent years. Wow!Stuff is on the verge of what may be its biggest ever success. Dave the Funky

Shoulder Monkey — a remote controlled robot — is set to be one of the big sellers in stores running up to Christmas and has also been snapped up by Toys-R-Us in America, which is predicting it will be one of the major toys of 2011.

But life was not always fun and games. Richard's younger brother suffered a stroke when he was five. The family's need to care for him helped drive Richard to success, but his brother died in his sleep from a brain haemorrhage aged just 25.

During his eight-day spell in Ely, Richard met a young man called Matthew with the same rare condition his brother died of.

The two men struck up a personal friendship which helped Richard come to terms with a secret he had buried 20 years before.

Richard, who used his years of karate experience for his undercover disguise as an instructor, will see his programme for the first time on Sunday night — he has no control over what it shows, although the decisions on who he gifted money to was entirely down to him.

He said: "I was absolutely gobsmacked when I was asked to be on the show. It's always been my favourite programme and I'd been joking about taking part in it just a few days before they got in touch. The experience was a real rollercoaster; there was good fun but just as much pain when I was there."