BAFTA winner Joann Fletcher had to change channels to find out she had scooped the top television award.

The Egyptologist from Barnsley, who has already won a Royal Television Award for Mummifying Alan: Egypt's Last Secret, had been watching a film when her sister called to say she was 'on'.

"We had been watching Pirates of the Caribbean when the phone rang," she said.

"She told me Dara O'Briain had said the specialist factual category was coming up so we turned the telly over.

"They had a clip from the programme with me talking about mummification. It was very strange when the screen was showing all the clips, it was surreal.

"It's just amazing really. We knew we had been nominated but we didn't expect to win.

"All the people who are involved with the awards do this day in day out. For us it has been bizarre."

The programme was the culmination of an eight year project where she and her partner Dr Stephen Buckley successfully re-created the mummification process used in ancient Egypt.

They used ancient Egyptian methods on taxi-driver Alan Billis, 61, from Torquay, who donated his body to medical research after learning he had lung cancer.

It beat Brian Cox's Wonders of the Universe and David Attenborough's Frozen Planet for a second time as well as Channel 4s British Masters.

Dr Fletcher, who is originally of Dodworth Road, Barnsley, said it was a real achievement for South Yorkshire.

"The whole project was done here and it's all credit to the staff who helped us at the Medico Legal Centre in Sheffield. It took a lot of faith in us to say come and use our facility. Alan was obviously a star and I only wish he could be hear to enjoy it.

"If it's good news for Barnsley and gets kids to realise they anything is possible, then that's the best bit for me."

The couple did not make the star-studded event as they are busy working on a new project which is due to air this time next year.