What You See is What You Get Read online

  ALAN SUGAR

  What You See Is What You Get

  MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY

  MACMILLAN

  www.facebook.com/lordsugar

  twitter.com/lord_sugar

  This book is dedicated to my mum and dad,

  Johnnie and Rita, and Harold Regal

  And to some of those who served me so well at Amstrad but are no longer with us:

  Dickie Mould, Michael Davis, Bill Weidenauer, Simon Angel, Jim Rice and Eric Shaw

  And to two men who helped me flourish in business but, sadly, are also no longer with us:

  Nick Lightowler and Shigemasa Otake

  Contents

  1. The Lucky Mistake

  Tar Blocks, Ginger Beer and Other Childhood Enterprises 1947–60

  2. ‘Shame About the Spelling, Sugar’

  School Days – ‘Sugar’s Got Rolls of Film for Three Bob’ 1960–3

  3. The Man at The Ministry

  And Leaving To Be ‘A Bloody Salesman’ 1963–6

  4. ‘Who is Going to Pay You on Friday?’

  The A M S Trading Company 1966–8

  5. The Truck Driver and His Wife

  Learning What People Want and Developing a Bullshit Radar 1969–72

  6. A Taste of Japanese Culture

  From the East End to the Far East 1973–6

  7. ‘Young Man, You Have a Good Business’

  Should I Take the Money and Run? 1978–9

  8. ‘Amstrad to Go Public’

  A Towering Success 1980–3

  9. Young Businessman of the Year

  ‘And the Award Goes to the Amstrad Blockbuster Computer’ 1982–6

  10. ‘I Am Changing Your Lives, Gentlemen’

  And Burning the Harvard Business School Manual 1985–6

  11. Everything Was Going Wrong at Once

  Losing the Midas Touch 1987–9

  12. ‘Who on Earth Is Rupert Murdoch?’

  When You See a Satellite Dish, Think of Sugar 1988–90

  13. ‘Terry Will Look After the Eleven on the Pitch . . .’

  ‘I’ll Look After the Eleven Million in the Bank’ – Buying a Nightmare 1991–2

  14. Bungs and Barristers

  A Backseat at Amstrad and Shooting Bambi’s Mum 1992–4

  15. The Prune Juice Effect

  And Carlos Kickaball, Tottenham 1993–5

  16. A Magnificent Deal

  New Inspiration with New Amstrad 1996–8

  17. ‘Sugar Out!’

  Arise, Sir Alan – The Nightmare Is Over 1998–2001

  18. ‘I Don’t Like Liars, Bullshitters, Cheats and Schmoozers’

  Hired on The Apprentice! 2002–6

  19. Luvvies and Darlings

  And the End of an Era at Amstrad 2005–7

  20. ‘Mum, It’s Not Lord Beaverbrook, It’s Lord Sugar’

  A Journey from Clapton to Clapton 2008–10

  Acknowledgements

  Index

  List of Plates

  1. Mum as a young woman, with her family. From left to right: Mum, Auntie Libba, my grandfather Aaron, Uncle John (who had a hardware shop) and at the front is Uncle Jack.

  2. My dad in 1927.

  3. Five months old and I’ve already survived being abandoned in a pram outside Woolworths. This was taken on 2 September 1947.

  4. You can see why Shirley nicknamed me Mopsy. Here I’m about two years old.

  5. Woolmer House, where we had the top corner flat.

  6. I was a page boy at my sister Shirley’s wedding to Harold Regal in March 1952. My cousin Denise was a bridesmaid.

  7. With Mum and Dad in Springfield Park.

  8. And about the same age, in more formal attire.

  9. With Mum and Dad on the way to my cousin’s wedding, May 1956.

  10. Derek’s engagement to Brenda. From left to right: (back) Harold Regal, Harold Mazin, Dad, Derek, Mr Press; (middle) Shirley, Daphne, Mum, Brenda, Mrs Press, Brenda’s grandma; (front) me and Adrian.

  11. A page boy at Derek’s wedding to Brenda. I’m on the left, and Adrian Press, Brenda’s brother, is on the right. We were to meet again a few years later.

  12. Already showing fighting spirit. With the Hackney School Boys Boxing Club, 1958. I’m third from right, top row.

  13. Happy at school, 1959.

  14. The stamp I used when I set up as a ‘professional’ photographer.

  15. In my mid-teens.

  16. On the beach with my best friends. From left to right: Steve, Tony, Geoff and me, with Malcolm sitting.

  17. With Ann, Easter 1967.

  18. I set up Amstrad in 1966 when I was nineteen. This is the very first Amstrad branded product – a cigarette lighter!

  19. Ann with her beloved grandfather Izzy on our wedding day, 28 April 1968.

  20. Ann’s parents, Johnnie and Rita, dancing at our reception.

  21. Mum and Dad dancing at our reception.

  22. My wedding day. A memorable and wonderful occasion, but I couldn’t wait for it to be over!

  23. With Ann in Tokyo on my first trip, in 1975, looking like a hippy.

  24. I bumped into Sammy Davis Junior at the Hilton Hotel, Tokyo, May 1976. I knew no one would believe me unless I had photographic evidence.

  25. The tower system that changed our fortunes.

  26. The flotation of Amstrad made the front page of the Evening Standard. I kept one of their advertising banners.

  27. Mr Otake, the boss of Orion. I put up with his mad ways as no one could beat Orion for quality and speed of production.

  28. Lord Carrington handing me the Guardian Young Businessman of the Year Award in 1984. Inside, I was worried the Amstrad bubble was going to burst.

  29. The CPC464, which took off like a rocket, outselling the competition.

  30. ‘And all this, gentlemen, for £399.’ The PCW8256 word processor.

  31. With Marion Vannier in 1986 at one of the Amstrad exhibition stands.

  32. With Sir Clive Sinclair at the press conference to announce that Amstrad had bought his company, 1986.

  33. The Amstrad Team, around 1988. Seated from left to right: me, José Luis Dominguez, Marion Vannier, Malcolm Miller. Standing from left to right: Jim Rice, Colin Heald, Bob Watkins, Ken Ashcroft.

  34. Dickie Mould, aka Boycie.

  35. With Mr Funai outside the Funai-Amstrad factory in 1987. The venture turned out to be a bit of a disaster.

  36. Showing Prince Charles a new PC at an event in Birmingham in 1988.

  37. With Ann and Gulu Lalvani.

  38. Ann with the kids on holiday.

  39. Simon’s Bar Mitzvah, with his proud grandfathers and dad.

  40. Daniel’s Bar Mitzvah, in the garden at Bramstons.

  41. With Mum at Simon’s engagement party, 1991.

  42. At the launch of Sky with Rupert Murdoch, June 1988. I’d just promised in front of the media to make satellite dishes for £199 – and I didn’t have a clue how I was going to do it!

  43. Receiving my honorary doctorate from London’s City University, December 1988.

  44. The Dream Team of myself and Venables on the pitch at White Hart Lane, 22 June 1991. The dream quickly became a nightmare.

  45. I’d dismissed Venables, God’s gift to football, and you’d have thought I’d shot Bambi. This Sun cartoon amused me, but the fallout, in reality, was hard to handle.

  46. After my libel victory against Venables, I had this giant cheque printed up. The money went to Great Ormond Street Hospital.

  47. With Ossie Ardiles, a Tottenham legend and the first manager I appointed.

  48. The handshake that sealed Jürgen Klinsmann’s transfer to Spurs. I’d arranged for Sky Sports to capture the moment.

>   49. David Ginola turned out to be one of the greatest players ever to perform at White Hart Lane.

  50. Daniel came to Spurs to help with the running of the club.

  51. My yacht, the Louisianna.

  52. With Stanley Kalms on his boat. We got on well socially, but there were never any favours coming from Dixons.

  53. Reunited with my old mates. From left to right: Malcolm, Geoff, me, Steve and Tony, at my fiftieth birthday party in March 1997.

  54. With Gordon Brown, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, in April 1998.

  55. With George Graham, God’s other gift to football and my lastditch attempt to find success on the pitch.

  56. I was honoured to accept a knighthood from Her Majesty the Queen in June 2000.

  57. ‘Arise, Sir Alan’. This photograph was taken after the ceremony. From left to right: Harold Regal, Shirley, Ann, me, Derek, Brenda, Daphne, Harold Mazin.

  58. We had a fantastic party at Bramstons to celebrate our fortieth wedding anniversary. From left to right: (standing) Jake, Alex, Matthew, Daniel, Emma, Simon, Mark, Nathan, Joe; (seated) Michaela, Rachel, Ann, Fay, me, Louise.

  59. I thought it was great being part of a popular show like The Apprentice. Here is a selection of the winners over the years, clockwise from top left: series 1 winner Tim Campbell; series 3 winner Simon Ambrose; series 5 winner Yasmina Siadatan; and series 4 winner Lee McQueen.

  60. Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford had worked with me for many years before the show. It was The Apprentice that made them friends, though.

  61. And here I’m with the candidates of The Junior Apprentice.

  62. With mates Piers Morgan and Nick Hewer.

  63. It was a great honour to be made Lord Sugar of Clapton. Ann, of course, was already a lady.

  64. On the day of the ennoblement ceremony, 20 July 2009, I got emotional seeing my family and thinking about my mum and dad. From left to right: Brenda, Minnie, Harold Regal, Johnnie, Ann, me, Daphne, Shirley, Harold Mazin and Derek.

  1

  The Lucky Mistake

  Tar Blocks, Ginger Beer and Other Childhood Enterprises

  1947–60

  There are three reasons why you might never have got the opportunity to read this book. The first is that maybe I wasn’t planned to be in this world, the second is that once I did arrive I was abandoned, and the third is that my mum – accidentally – nearly killed me! Being twelve years younger than my closest sibling twins, I often joke that I think (well, I’m sure) I was a ‘mistake’ – maybe the result of a good night out during the post-war euphoria.

  In the late forties, it was normal for babies to be left outside shops in their prams while the mothers went inside. That in itself gives you a picture of what times were like back then – parents were not worried about weirdoes abducting babies. One day, my mum (who hadn’t had a baby to think about for twelve years) went to Woolworths and parked me outside in my pram. She did her shopping, walked out and took the 106 bus from Stoke Newington back to Clapton. Only when she was halfway home did it dawn on her: ‘I’ve left Alan outside Woolworths!’

  Like all kids, I picked up various bugs and sniffles and occasionally had to be off school. My mum would tuck me up in her bed and nip down to the shops to buy me some comics – the Beano and the Dandy. I’d finish reading them in half an hour and be bored stiff. On one particular day, when I was about ten, I got up, went into the kitchen and sat at the table, watching her cooking.

  My mother had no sense of smell at all – an extraordinary phenomenon. I guess in those days medical science wasn’t sufficiently advanced to know the reason or come up with a cure. Anyway, as I sat in the kitchen, I started drifting off. I folded my arms on the table and laid my head down, unable to keep awake. I was lucky that around midday my sister Daphne came home from work for lunch. Mum had left one of the gas rings on, and because she couldn’t smell, she had no idea that the whole kitchen had filled with gas. It was so bad, Daphne swears she could even smell the gas from outside the front door. You can imagine her horror when she saw me, head down on the table. She rushed to pick me up and took me out on to the balcony for some fresh air.

  I sometimes wonder just how much gas was in the air that day. Mum was cooking on the other gas ring, which was lit, so I reckon it wouldn’t have taken too long for the whole room to blow up. So there you have it. I may have entered the world by mistake, been abandoned and nearly killed, but I am here to tell my story.

  This may have given you the wrong impression of my mum, Fay, who was the strong centre of the family. She was nearly forty when I was born on 24 March 1947 at Hackney Hospital and she had a difficult labour. To use her words, ‘They were very worried about me – I was on the gates.’ (On the gates of heaven, she meant.) In the end, I was born by Caesarean section, and was pulled out with a pair of tongs which grabbed me by my upper lip, according to Mum. Later in life, when I was at the swimming baths or at the seaside and came out of the water shivering with cold, two dark marks would appear on my upper lip. Mum would say, ‘Look at Alan’s upper lip. See those two blue marks? That’s where they schlapped him out.’ Is that an old wives’ tale or what?!

  My dad Nathan (Nat to everyone) was also nearly forty when I was born. My parents’ relatively advanced age endorses my theory that I wasn’t a planned arrival. I was always slightly embarrassed at school on parents’ day because they looked much older than the other mums and dads – more like grandparents.

  They were both born in the East End of London, my mum on 31 December 1907. She was one of twins, but sadly her twin sister died at birth. Mum was only fourteen when her mother died and, as the eldest of six children, she had the heavy task of running the home – cooking, cleaning and shopping for everyone. Her father, Aaron, had a horse and cart and his business was hauling stuff – I guess in modern-day terms he would be a man with a van. Mum told me one of the highlights in her life was a Sunday out on the horse and cart. They would set off from the East End and venture as far afield as Whipps Cross, where east London meets Essex. I never met my maternal grandfather, who died before I was born, but I was named after him, Alan being the anglicised version of the Hebrew name Aaron.

  My dad was born on 3 August 1907, and was also one of six children. I’m told that his father, Simon, was a cobbler, and I think the whole family, as with so many other Jewish families, derived their income from the garment industry one way or another. Anyway, it’s safe to say that my parents both came from ordinary, low-income, working-class families. Certainly there was no inheritance coming my way.

  Mum and Dad married on 1 March 1931 at Philpot Street Synagogue. My eldest sister, Shirley, was born on 10 January 1932, ten months after Mum and Dad got married – they didn’t hang about. The twins, Daphne and Derek, were born on 28 July 1934. In terms of appearance, Derek and Shirley take after Dad, and Daphne and I take after Mum.

  My mum was short, around 5 ft 3 in., and stocky – not fat but strongly built and fit. She got her exercise humping two full shopping bags on and off buses, walking the long distance from the bus stop to our block of flats and then climbing the three flights of stairs up to our flat – and that was when she was in her forties and fifties. It makes me laugh these days how most housewives have cars and, if they can afford it, go down to the gym to keep fit by walking on a treadmill! My build is just like hers and fortunately I am blessed with her fitness. Dad was also stockily built and quite short, around 5 ft 6 in. Although he wasn’t fat, he would go up and down in weight and have to cut back on what he ate from time to time and I inherited that tendency too.

  By the way, to correct some of the snipers in the media who have in the past used some colourful language to describe me, including ‘the short, stocky, 5 ft 6 in. midget’, my official height is 5 ft 8 in. and has been since I was sixteen.

  My parents’ first married home was at 11 Langdown Mansions, near Hessle Street Market in Stepney. They moved to 16 Woolmer House, Upper Clapton – in the borough of Hackney – on 7 June 19
42. At that time, people were being moved out of Stepney and the docks area, as it was a prime target for German bombing.

  Woolmer House, where I was brought up, was part of a very large council estate on the main Upper Clapton Road. Our block was three storeys high, with no lift, and was situated in a cluster of about three other blocks, with what I called a playground in the middle which had some poles for the housewives to hang out their washing. Opposite ours was another block, Weald Square, where the famous writer Arnold Wesker lived.

  Compared to Langdown Mansions, Woolmer House was unashamed luxury. Our corner flat was on the top floor, and it was unusual because it had two levels. It had a toilet and separate bathroom, with a bath that doubled up as a table (you lifted up the hinged top when you wanted a bath), a kitchen, a lounge and one large bedroom on the first level, which was where Mum and Dad slept, while upstairs there were two more bedrooms for the kids.

  I have no memories of my eldest sister Shirley when she lived at home, but I’m told that because I had a mop of curly blond hair she would call me Mopsy! I was a page boy at her wedding when I was five, and a day or so before the event I got hold of a pair of scissors and cut all my curls off. Everyone, including Shirley, went bananas. Why did they let a five-year-old near a pair of scissors, you may ask.

  I also have only a vague recollection of Daphne and Derek living at home. Derek had his own room after Shirley moved out and Daphne slept in the same room as me. She got married when I was nine and I was a page boy again. Derek did his National Service in Singapore, and when he came back he worked in a garment factory as a machinist. He was very bright and these days would have gone to university, but back then there was no chance my parents would have been able to support him. While working in the factory he studied for the Knowledge, to become a London taxi driver. I’d sometimes help him study – I’d call out, ‘Balls Pond Road to Piccadilly Circus’ and he’d have to tell me the route.

  As we lived at the top of a block of flats, I never had the chance to play with other kids of my age when I was very young. All I knew were teenagers and adults. It’s not so much that I lacked confidence, but it was a definite shock to the system when Mum dropped me off on my first day at Northwold Road Primary School, as I didn’t like the idea of going to school and not being with her. At breaktime, when they let us out into the playground, I saw my chance, escaped through the open gate and ran all the way home, crying my eyes out, with a member of staff chasing after me. When I got there, I was greeted by Daphne, who asked, ‘What are you doing?’ She could see I was upset and then she spotted an out-of-breath teacher, puffing and panting behind me. Between them they calmed me down, and I went back to school like a good boy. I guess this nervousness at the first day of school is quite typical and it can’t have taken me long to settle in, as the teachers were soon telling me to stop talking.