PUSH THE BOUNDARIES: SIR RICHARD BRANSON

Christopher Jackson Interviews The Legendary Virgin Founder As He Navigates The Choppy Waters Of The Pandemic

Fame will sometimes have a blurring effect. Public presence sustained over a long period of time can create a confusing image. During a long and varied career, so much is attempted and commented on, it is as if longstanding celebrity contains geological layers. To get to the truth of what made someone famous in the first place is a form of excavation.

At 70, Sir Richard Branson has reached this level of fame. We think we know him, but he has come to mean different things to different people. The range of his businesses interests makes his precise contribution to the world difficult to pin down: from trains, music, journalism, space travel, healthcare and - what has given him many headaches during the pandemic - aviation, there is little he hasn’t attempted.

Indeed the three words ‘Sir Richard Branson’ are themselves a sort of paradox, the first word suggestive of establishment accommodation, and the latter two synonymous with daredevilry, rebellion and harmless fun.

Branson was born in Blackheath, London to soldier and barrister James Branson, and Eve, an entrepreneur. Eve sadly died of Covid-19 in January 2021, aged 96. When we caught up with Branson shortly afterwards, he was happy to engage extensively, and submitted to our questions always in good humour, making sure we had what we wanted.

Virgin Mother

When I offer my condolences, he replies that it’s his mother’s spirit he prefers to recall: “I don’t believe in mourning, I believe in celebrating incredible lives - and my mum really did lead quite a remarkable life,” he explains. “She had such a zest for life - and even at 96 years old she had the same energy and wit she had when I was a boy. When I was growing up she was always working on a project; she was inventive, fearless, relentless - an entrepreneur before the word existed.”

Eve’s example gave the young Branson an ingredient the entrepreneur cannot do without: gumption. Educated at Scaitcliffe School in Egham, and then at Stowe in Buckinghamshire, Branson would give the UK educational system short shrift, famously leaving school at 16. Partly due to his dyslexia, and partly because of inherent restlessness, one gets the sense that he never felt comfortable in educational institutions. With a can-do spirit the world would later come to associate with his companies, he simply set about creating structures better suited to his gifts.

Parental support empowered him in that decision: “The values that my mum