The Times Magazine 29seven in ten entrepreneurs cite traumatic
childhood experiences as a formative event.
The businessman Lord Rose – whose mother
took her own life when he was just starting
out in his retail career as a trainee at Marks
& Spencer – sees it almost in medical terms.
“Early trauma is like a vaccine. It gives you the
antibodies to fight future pain,” he explained.
Sir James Dyson described vividly how
his entrepreneurial spirit was forged after his
father was diagnosed with cancer and died
when Dyson was eight. “You suddenly realise
how alone you are,” he told us. “You’ve lost
one of your guides. I had no father to give an
example or to do fatherly things with. I think
you inevitably make lots of mistakes and learn
from them.” He was close to tears as he
described the last time he saw his father, Alec,
a teacher at Gresham’s School in Norfolk. “He
was carrying this little leather suitcase. He
said goodbye to us and walked to the station.
He was off to hospital, but I didn’t know he
was going to die. It was such courage.”
Dyson remembers precisely where he was
when he heard that his father had died. “I was
sitting with my mother and brother having
asparagus soup and there was a phone call.
My mother came in to give us the news.” Alec
had written a letter to each of his children.
“He knew he was dying. It was a ‘how to live
your life’ letter – always do what is right.
I think he’d have been disappointed in me at
school but pleased with what I’ve done since.”
The businessman believes he has been
trying to make up for what he calls the “unjust
separation” from his father all his life. “The
worst thing was going to my own father’s
memorial service in the school chapel,” he said.
“I don’t think the other nine-year-old boys
particularly wanted to go to chapel and I had
to sit among them rather than sit with my
family. I was on my own, stiff upper lip, treated
like all the other boys.” Long-distance running
became his solace as well as a way to challenge
himself. “It was freedom. It was getting out of
boarding school, doing something entirely on
my own and relying on myself.”
Dyson is convinced that the self-reliance
he had to learn as a child has helped him as
an inventor as well as an entrepreneur. “I had
nothing to lose and so I’m not frightened of
taking risks,” he told us. “I like living on the
edge.” He is always pushing himself, striving
for the next idea. “I suppose it all goes back
to my father dying and wanting to be able
to survive on my own,” he explained to us.
“Taking risks and sometimes failing but trying
to change things and shake things up is much
more fun than just being successful.”
The same spirit of self-reliance drove on
the venture capitalist Sir Damon Buffini. He
grew up on a council estate in Leicester, the
son of a single mother, and never knew his
father, an African-American serviceman whowent back to the US after he was born. “He
was never part of my life,” he told us. “I’ve
never met him. I think it probably made me
more independent from an early age. You’ve
got to get yourself to football, do the laundry,
cook some of the meals and fill the coal
scuttle.” Buffini made millions in the City
and was once described as the most powerful
black man in Britain. He is now chairman of
the National Theatre, with a philanthropic
foundation and a clutch of directorships. But
as he struggled to overcome racism as well as
disadvantage, he always knew that he had to
make his own luck. “When you come from a
certain sort of background the opportunities
don’t present themselves very often, so when
they do you’ve got to take them,” he explained.
“There’s no safety net, no second chances.”
There is a growing body of scientific
evidence that adversity – at least in reasonable
levels – can make people emotionally stronger.
The Canadian psychiatrist JT MacCurdy
studied the public reaction to the Blitz and
found to his surprise that people in London
who survived the bombs became braver over
time rather than more scared.
The clinical psychologist Frances Goodhart,
who counsels families on bereavement, says a
similar process takes place in those who face
adversity in their early years. “Young people
who experience loss or trauma have to dealwith grief. They will have had to learn to
accept the reality of the loss, acknowledge the
pain, adjust to new environments. But these
tasks help people to develop strengths that
carry them through personal loss. For certain
individuals they can harness these new skills
not only to cope but to thrive and achieve
great things.”
The retail guru Mary Portas lost her
mother when she was 16, her father remarried
almost immediately then died two years later
of a heart attack and her stepmother threw
the children out of the house. Devastated,
Mary turned down a place at Rada and went
to work as a shop assistant to pay for her
younger brother’s meals. By the time she was
30 she was a director of Harvey Nichols. At
50 she had her own agency and a TV career.
Her mother’s death “spelt the end of my
childhood”, she said. “There was no structure.
It was a very bleak time.” Shopkeepers saved
her, helping her out whenever they could. “I’d
go into the butchers and they would say, ‘This
is what your mother had on a Wednesday.’
The greengrocer would make notes on how to
cook vegetables. It was a web of security.”
She believes that the secret of her success
in her retail career is what she learnt as a girl.
“I had a sense that life is short and you have
to pack it in. I don’t compromise on the big
stuff but I learnt to adapt quickly and my
life has all come together. It pushed to the
forefront my resilience and my ability to take
responsibility for people. You think your world
is over when you are 16, but you will be loved
and love again. You just have to do your best.”
The clinical psychologist Meg Jay argues
that those who experience disaster in theirContinues on page 41‘I used to run away from
the children’s home and
sit in the park looking
at my old house’
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