I'm known for value for money. I was brought up to be frugal, and it's definitely a factor in my success. I was born in the Fifties, which was a frugal era, and my family had to be very careful with money out of necessity.
From John Caudwell
My father was unwell when I was 11, had a stroke at 14 and died when I was 18. My mother going to work at seven in the morning and coming back to look after him and me and my brother left its mark on me.
In the early days, I had everything to prove. A very working class lad with a burning ambition. A very crude way of measuring success is how much you are worth.
Sometimes your worst competitors are the ones which are dying because they do stupid things.
My objective is to leave my family adequately catered for, but I want my children to make their own way. I want them to have pride in their own achievements.
I do want to keep the Wedgewood Collection in place, intact, and open to the public. Selling it off would be a real tragedy.
Journalists like to say I started off sweeping the pottery floors. But it was just a short-lived part time job doing that after I left school.
I might have made more money if I had outsourced to India, and I knew I'd find it easier to hire senior managers in London. But I wanted to be in Stoke. What could be more satisfying than creating work for 3,000 people in my home town?
I didn't want my epitaph to read 'Here lies John Caudwell, billionaire.' I knew that wasn't enough. I've had a charitable instinct all my life, but working gave me no time for it.
Mine was quite a working-class childhood with very little money, and my father was out of work a couple of times, which had quite a traumatic effect.
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