Alan Sugar - What You See Is What You Get: My Autobiography

MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY

MACMILLAN

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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

Tar Blocks, Ginger Beer and Other Childhood Enterprises 194760

School Days Sugars Got Rolls of Film for Three Bob 19603

And Leaving To Be A Bloody Salesman 19636

The A M S Trading Company 19668

Learning What People Want and Developing a Bullshit Radar 196972

From the East End to the Far East 19736

Should I Take the Money and Run? 19789

A Towering Success 19803

And the Award Goes to the Amstrad Blockbuster Computer 19826

And Burning the Harvard Business School Manual 19856

Losing the Midas Touch 19879

When You See a Satellite Dish, Think of Sugar 198890

Ill Look After the Eleven Million in the Bank Buying a Nightmare 19912

A Backseat at Amstrad and Shooting Bambis Mum 19924

And Carlos Kickaball, Tottenham 19935

New Inspiration with New Amstrad 19968

Arise, Sir Alan The Nightmare Is Over 19982001

Hired on The Apprentice ! 20026

And the End of an Era at Amstrad 20057

A Journey from Clapton to Clapton 200810

Tar Blocks, Ginger Beer and Other Childhood Enterprises

194760

There are three reasons why you might never have got the opportunity to read this book. The first is that maybe I wasnt 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, Im 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 hadnt 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: Ive 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. Id 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 wasnt 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 couldnt 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 wouldnt 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 Alans upper lip. See those two blue marks? Thats 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 wasnt 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. Im 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, its 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 didnt 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 wasnt 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 1942. At that time, people were being moved out of Stepney and the docks area, as it was a prime target for German bombing.