WEYMOUTH shop manager Tiffany Lowe celebrated winning £21,000 on a TV game show by watching the episode with friends in the pub.

The 22-year-old met her pals at The Clipper in St Thomas Street to watch her appearance on Channel Four’s Deal Or No Deal presented by Noel Edmonds.

For the past couple of weeks the manager of Weymouth’s Weird Fish clothes shop has been a participant on the show.

But yesterday she appeared as the main contestant with the chance to win up to £250,000 and she told how excited she had been during its recording.

Tiffany, of Chickerell Road, said: “You have an idea when it gets close to the time when you could be called but you don’t know exactly when it will be.

“When my name came up I hid my face and thought ‘Oh my god, this is it.’”

The show features 22 participants each with their own numbered boxes hiding the figures of the various amounts that can be won.

Contestants pick one number at a time and the figure in that box is lost.

After picking 14 boxes she was offered £21,000 by ‘the banker’ and chose to ‘deal’ and settle for that amount.

She later found out if she had carried on she could have won £250,000 but the box on her table had only 1p so it was a real gamble.

She said: “It was a difficult decision but I’m not greedy and I’ve seen so many people walk away with nothing.

“I thought that’s a significant amount of money to me and I wasn’t going to be a gambler.”

The former Holy Trinity, All Saints and Weymouth College student spent six days filming the show in Bristol.

Tiffany’s parents Chris and Jeanette travelled up for the day when she was the contestant.

On her show she chose not to pick the number 17 because a ladybird with that number of spots had repeatedly landed on her.

To her surprise at the end the number 17 box was found to have the top prize inside – £250,000.

Tiffany said: “I saw that ladybird four or five times in four days.”

She has now had a ladybird tattooed on her foot.

During the show Noel Edmonds described the Weymouth girl as ‘lovely’ and laughed and joked with her throughout.

Tiffany said she enjoyed the show so much she had a tinge of sadness when she was called up.

She said: “Now the show has been on I’m sad that it’s the end of the journey but it’s been ruling my life for months.”

Tiffany is going to start spending her winnings by getting a landline installed at her home as she feels ‘you’ve arrived when you have a landline’.

But apart from that she has made very few plans for her cash.

“I’ll probably go on holiday,” she added.