The Secret Millionaire - David Pearl

Wednesday 5 December 2007 @ 9:00pm on Channel 4. Episode 5/7

Tonight, London based property magnate David Pearl is leaving his wealth behind to go undercover as a volunteer at the Queen Alexandra, the largest hospital in Portsmouth.

The people he meets and is introduced to during his ten-day stay will be told he has recently retired and is taking part in a documentary about volunteer work. To help his cover story, David will get by on just a state pension and for the first time in his life, he will be working for nothing.

A self-confessed workaholic, fitness fanatic and one of Britain's richest men, David owns so many properties in London and a further 13,000 across the country that he even struggles to remember which buildings are his. He knows his wealth can make a difference and now he wants to get out and see how he can really change lives for the better.

Volunteers

He is joining the town's biggest group of volunteers who work across the hospital often relieving the nursing staff of mundane and laboursome work, such as feeding the patients, changing beds and generally helping wherever possible, to give them more time to attend to the patients' medical needs.

The volunteer guides are part of an army of almost 700 volunteers who help keep the hospital running. On his first morning David teams up with volunteer, Carol Cork. She is an ex-patient who started a scheme to help feed the critically ill.

Even after spending just one day on the ward with her, David is in awe at how she just throws her heart and soul into it, working with such devotion for no financial renumeration. "It leaves you feeling quite small at the end of the day.

Devotion

I can't get it into my head that these people give their time, their devotion, love. They give everything. For something I didn't even know existed."

But Carol is not the only person whose tenderness and selflessness practically reduces him to tears. David's next shift is on the oncology unit, with 72-year-old volunteer, Brenda Burnside. She is an unpaid housekeeper looking after the ward.

She was an auxiliary nurse for 25 years but not one for being idle, she has dedicated the last seven years to volunteering. David learns, from working more shifts with her, that on top of her caring duties at the hospital Brenda also nurses her practically housebound husband who suffered a number of strokes a few years ago in his early 60s.

Already impressed, David is now overwhelmed by how much these individuals are prepared to do for others and is really surprised at how much this experience is transforming him, let alone the lives of the people he hopes to help at the end. "I think maybe I'm changing my life this week" he says almost in disbelief.

Impressive

And his list of impressive people simply escalates when he drops in at the hospital's Macmillan Centre for Cancer sufferers. Run by Nicky Booth, the centre is set up as a
a non-clinical environment where people can come and just sit and not be a cancer patient for an hour or so during the day before and after their treatment.

One of the volunteers who David is introduced to by Nicky is 34-year-old Sharon who has been helping to run activities at the centre for four years. Yet again, her generosity and selflessness astounds David. Sharon is wheelchair bound and only a few weeks away from getting married.

But rather than focus on final preparations on her dress, flowers and table plan, Sharon is far more concerned with making sure that the Vicar will allow them to hold a collection at the church for the Cancer Centre.

David also manages to find the time, during his undercover mission, to hang out with members of the local Stroke association at their social club, Different Strokes. There he meets Andy, who was once in the TA and the Parachute regiment, but following a stroke, his communication and walking skills have been severely affected and he is now looked after full time by his partner Di.

As David sums up, there seems to be no end to the truly inspiring people that this journey leads him to. And deciding who is most deserving of his own money is not going to be any easy task!

"Every time they've done something, I've said my god that person's the most wonderful person in the world, and then I meet somebody else and that person's the most wonderful person in the world. It goes on and on and on. When are we gonna finish? When's, where's the end?"