RACHEL Kabra knew she was rich the day she walked past a posh London art gallery and bought a painting in the window without asking the price.

The 37-year-old mother of two behind the multi-million-pound Red Letter Day gift company says: "I remember thinking, 'Yep, I must have made it to be able to do this'.

"I also remember thinking my Mum would be turning in her grave at the thought of me spending so much on a picture. But it was my reward to myself for having realised my dream."

And dreams are what this unassuming woman is all about. Because if you want to travel to the moon (yes really!), if you want to race an Fl car, swim with the sharks or take to the skies in a Tiger Moth then Rachel's the girl to make it happen.

In fact this Christmas Eve at the dead of night, the woman who has turned "surprising" people into a pounds 40million business will create a special surprise for sons, Mark, five, and Paul, two, in the garden of their vast house in Chelmsford. "I'll be there with hammer and nails building a huge climbing frame for them," says Rachel. "The idea is that it will be built by the time they wake up on Christmas morning."

It's hard to believe this ordinary-looking woman has a personal fortune of pounds 10million.

But she HAS...and she's determined to make more. "Sometimes I can't believe it myself," says Rachel, who started Red Letter Days in the front room of her London flat when she was just 25.

"I went to the banks, but no one was interested," she says. "I only wanted pounds 7,000, but because no one had ever done this before, they didn't want to know."

In the end Rachel's mum, dad and four brothers each chipped in pounds 1,000 to help get her started. "I'm sure they thought they were kissing goodbye to their cash," she laughs. "But I worked it out the other day - and for that initial investment they've each made pounds 250,000.

"That's one of the things that kept me going during the tough times. No way was I going to let my family down."

In the 12 years since Red Letter Days started, it has become one of the UK's fastest-growing companies. What makes it special is that it offers what just a few years ago would have been unattainable experiences to people who have no idea what to buy for the people they loved.

In the early days, Rachel tested the experiences herself. She did parachute jumps, drove racing cars and power boats. "I even did a tandem skydive," she says. "It was the most terrifying experience of my life."

These days she has a team of men to do the tests. Talking of men, I ask her why it is that, when it comes to buying presents, they don't have a clue. "They're frightened of failure," she laughs.

"Which is why they play it safe with jewellery, chocolates and perfume. Women are more creative and imaginative. They're more willing to take a chance."

But to be fair, it was thanks to men that Rachel got the idea for Red Letter Days. "I was working as an accountant in the City and finding it really hard to buy presents for my male friends. It was then I started to think about giving 'experiences' as gifts.

"I wanted to be able to give people something they'd never forget, that wouldn't get broken, thrown away or go out of fashion. I wanted to offer gifts that would be a real memory."

And she did. Although Rachel has managed to keep a low profile for the last 12 years, she's made sure her company has had maximum exposure. In the last few weeks our TV screens have been awash with ads for Red Letter Day gifts.

"I watch those ads and I still can't quite believe they're talking about my company," she says. "The first time they went on air everyone I knew rang to say how fantastic it was. For them it was proof that I'd arrived. And, if I'm honest, it felt a bit like that for me too." Rachel admits there were times when she thought the business would go under. "It was really tough. All my friends kept telling me to give it up and get back to accounting. And there were days during the first two years when I DID want to pack it in. But I'd wake next morning and think 'No, I've given two years of my life to this'."

The turning point came when her boss (she was still working as a freelance accountant) told her to see a well-known marketing man. "He told me the company logo was wrong and the brochure was too big."

A new brochure was slipped into magazines and papers and in just six weeks Red Letter Days had taken pounds 30,000 - three times as much as it had in the whole of the previous year. "I always knew it would work. But never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined we'd get to this stage." It's all a far cry from living above her father's electrical shop in Chelmsford and being turned down by three universities and rejected for a management training course when she left school. She ended up in an accountancy firm as a run-around.

"All that rejection made me more determined to succeed," she says. "I found I liked working for accountants. So I decided to become one."

While studying she met Lax Kabra, an accountant in the City.

They married when Rachel was 25...about the same time as Red Letter Days was opening for business. "I was married to Lax for six years. He was wonderful when the business started because he was a corporate accountant and helped me with all the nuts and bolts stuff. But I outgrew the marriage. I'd met him when I was 22. I had a 9-5 job and I hadn't discovered what I wanted to do." Their problems began when the business took off. "Lax is Indian and in his culture the man is the earner and the woman stays at home. When we met HE had the better-paid job. Suddenly I was doing high-powered stuff and he couldn't cope."

Now, with pounds 10million in the bank, won't it be difficult for her to find men who can hold their own with a multi-millionairess?

"I can see it might be difficult for men to ask me out," she says. "But I have met someone."

Rachel is an intensely private woman and it's obvious she'd rather walk on hot coals that give away the secrets of her love life. But she did reveal the person she is now involved with started out as a friend.

"I met him a year ago, but it was only recently it turned into something more." So is he as rich as her? "He's probably not as rich as me," she laughs. "But he IS successful enough to hold his own.

THE best thing is not just that he's lovely, but he understands that money isn't everything. He's a very spiritual man and sees all the material stuff for what it is - a bit of a veneer."

I say he sounds like the kind of man she should marry. "Maybe I will," she says, smiling with the look of a woman who might already have been asked.

I say life must be pretty hectic for a single mother running a multi-million-pound company. "I'm a businesswoman, I'm a single mum and I've got two young demanding children," she says. "So I've got lots of things going on. Even as I'm talking I'm worried because my sons are both at home with flu and chickenpox. But they are very sweet and very patient with me. I've also got a network of drivers who take them to school, collect them and deliver them to nannies.

"My problem is I'm always biting off more than I can chew, which can be a good thing in business, but it does lead to stress. The thing is my company isn't just a job. It's my life, which means there's always something going on.

"But I'm like every working mum. I suffer enormous guilt about not spending enough time with my kids. The only thing that gives me comfort is that if anything ever happens to me they'll be taken care of.

"But I do make time for a personal life. I go swimming with the boys. I love shopping, I love cooking and I've recently got into gardening."

For a woman whose life has been transformed by money, Kabra seems pretty disinterested in it. "It isn't that," she says. "It's just that when you get to the point of having enough to buy anything you want, you realise it isn't the be all and end all.

"But, of course, you have to get to the point of having enough to realise that. For me it's not becoming a millionaire that's the buzz. It's about how things reflect on you. You want to create something you're intensely proud of. It's not about wanting to double the turnover that drives me, it's 'How I can please people more?'"

It's hard to see how this woman who carries "quietness" around with her can maintain her relative anonymity for much longer.

With a company that's about to get even bigger, Rachel is going to have to get used to the limelight. "I'm not comfortable with it," she says. "I started a course on garden design recently and no one knows what I do and I find that really liberating. It helps me switch off. People shouldn't be intimidated by the fact I have money, but they are."