SHE drives a brand new Ford Fiesta, she's just had her 22nd dream holiday and last year she got most of her children's Christmas presents all for the price of a few postage stamps.

For Lynne Hargreaves is one of the UK's most successful compers ("comper" is a term used to describe someone who spend a lot of time entering competitions).

She enters around 25 competitions a day and has won prizes worth more than £200,000 since she first started comping in 1998. That works out at around three prizes a week.

The 45-year-old mum began to enter competitions after illness forced her to quit her job as a telephone operator in her mid-20s.

"I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis which left me practically housebound," she explains.

"I couldn't go dancing, clubbing or do other things that girls in their 20s do, so I started doing puzzles to keep my brain working."

And while many people are still counting the cost of Christmas, Lynne says most of her family's gifts were competition prizes.

"I aim to win Christmas presents throughout the year. After all, what's the point of going out and buying them when you can win them for free? Last year I won everything from a Playstation to a mountain bike."

But she says her winning streak is nothing to do with being lucky.

"My friends often say that they don't enter competitions because they aren't lucky. I always reply that you've got to be in it to win it."

Fellow comper Ken Lane, a semi-retired security officer from Bournemouth, agrees that it's more about good tactics than good fortune.

"There are ways to improve your chances of winning a prize," he says. "I always do something to make my entry stand out from the rest.

"I've got lots of stickers and things to brighten it up a bit, and I buy about a thousand postcards at a time. The more you enter, the more chance you have of winning.

"I enter everything. I have been known to enter under the name of Mrs K Lane and I won a makeover for my mother.

"I send about 40 postcards a week, and I can't read a newspaper without doing the crossword - but tie breakers are my favourite where you have to come up with a rhyme or finish off a short story.

"The only problem is that I'm a bit of technophobe so I'm missing out on all those competitions on the internet. Maybe I need to win a new computer!"

Ken says he has been into competitions since his teens, and has won everything from holidays, washing-machines and televisions to a year's supply of detergent.

"I am one of these horrible bores - a mine of useless information!

"I often turn up at the library with a list of questions covering everything from what was the name of Donald Duck's three nephews to something to do with the fall of the Roman Empire!"

Ken, who lives on his own in Boscombe, reckons his hobby has helped to keep him on the straight and narrow too.

"I might have been a boozer or a gambler if I wasn't a comper.

"I tend to work unsociable hours, and my children have all grown up and left home, so I would rather do this than sit around and watch the telly.

"I can't put a price on the prizes I've won - that's not what it's about for me. I just love doing it.

"It's a great hobby. I've been to places and seen things I would never otherwise have got a chance to do."