Duncan Bannatyne

Biography Born in 1949 in the town of Clydebank, Duncan was raised in relatively modest circumstances. He was told by his mother that she could not afford to buy him a bicycle, so Duncan asked the local newsagents if he could start a paper round; told he would need a list of 100 potential customers, Duncan painstakingly knocked on many doors and eventually drew up a list of 100 names and addresses. He got the job, bought a bike and never looked back. In 1964, at the age of 15, Duncan volunteered for 12 years with the Royal Navy as a junior 2nd class engineering mechanic stoker at RNTE Shotley near Ipswich. He served in the Navy for several years before receiving a dishonourable discharge for threatening to throw an officer off a boat landing jetty in Scotland. In his biography, Duncan explains the incident; it was in part a reaction to this officer's abuse of his authority, in part a dare by his shipmates and in part a way of getting out of the Navy, with which he had become disillusioned. Afterwards, he had to serve nine months in the tough Colchester military detention centre before being discharged aged 20. In his twenties, Duncan moved to Jersey, where he met his first wife, and then to Stockton-on-Tees in the North East. It was there that Duncan’s business career began, with an ice cream van bought for £450; he soon expanded by buying more vans and eventually sold the business for £28,000, founding a care home business instead. Quality Care Homes was sold for £26 million in 1996 and another business, children’s nursery chain Just Learning, for £22 million. Duncan has since branched into Health Clubs, with the popular Bannatyne's Health Clubs chain to his name, and also bars, hotels and property. He acquired 26 Health Clubs from Hilton Hotels back in August 2006, which made Bannatyne's the largest independent chain of Health Clubs in the United Kingdom. In October 2008, in defiance of the credit, crunch he opened the £12,000,000 Bannatyne Spa Hotel in Hastings and also revamped his spa chain.
Television and media career Duncan’s first TV appearance was in October 2003, on the BBC Two documentary Mind of a Millionaire. He went on to present 23 episodes of Mind Your Own Business, again for the BBC, where he helped to transform failing businesses. Since his initial appearance on BBC Two's Dragons' Den, Duncan has become a very familiar face in the media. He has appeared on ITV's Fortune - Million Pound Giveaway and made guest appearances in episodes of Would I Lie To You?, 8 out of 10 Cats, Al Murray's Happy Hour, The Graham Norton Show, one episode of Break with the Boss, as well as several appearances as a panelist on channel Five's The Wright Stuff. He also appeared on ITV1's Rich List Give It Away, where he travelled the country encouraging wealthy people to give money to charity. A documentary entitled Bannatyne Takes on Tobacco was broadcast on BBC2 on 1 July 2008. In this programme Duncan visited three African countries to investigate the tactics used by big tobacco companies (British American Tobacco in particular) in selling cigarettes to children. So successful and far reaching was the documentary that the Maldives Government, having watched it, overturned a decision to co-operate with BAT who wanted to bring a certain cigarette brand into their territory.
Charity work As a fervent fundraiser Duncan supports a number of key charities including the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Scottish International Relief (SIR). Earlier this year Duncan was named as a UNICEF UK Ambassador which was a great honour. Duncan’s charity work is far reaching and through his charity work with SIR he has been involved in several projects in Romania & Colombia over a period of 10 years, notably Casa Bannatyne in Târgu-Mures, a hospice founded by Duncan for orphans with HIV and AIDS. In March 2008, Duncan established the Bannatyne Charitable Trust with a personal injection of £1,000,000 and in May of the same year he added his support to the launch of the Geared for Giving Campaign at the House of Commons, to encourage UK Business Leaders to set up and promote a Workplace Giving scheme to benefit UK registered charities with tax effective donations through employees pay. Duncan became President of No Smoking Day in October 2008 and has also been involved with the stop smoking charity QUIT, visiting schools and campaigning for awareness amongst children of the dangers of smoking. Duncan is a trustee of Comic Relief and on the 27th November 2008 he travelled to Ethiopia to visit some of the charity’s projects. He said “The most significant part for me was when we were shown that people are taught how to sow vegetables so they can grow them in their own homes; in addition to the training programme, the project supplies seeds and tools so that they can become self sufficient.” Duncan then visited a woman had gone through the programme and was now growing her own plants ready for sale. Her whole garden was taken up by an amazing array of plants. Duncan presented her with the Bannatyne/Ethiopia award for best entrepreneur of the year.
Personal life Duncan has six children, four by his first wife and two by his current wife, Joanne McCue. He also has one grandchild, from his eldest daughter. Joanne McCue was Duncan's former Director of Nursing with Quality Care Homes. He proposed to her in Barbados in early 2006 and was married on 11th November 2006 at St Mary’s Church in Norton, Tees Valley. Celebrities at the ceremony included Anna Ryder Richardson, Cherie Lunghi, Gary McCausland, Dragons’ Den presenter Evan Davis and fellow Dragons Theo Paphitis, Richard Farleigh, Simon Woodroffe and Deborah Meaden. Pop star Marc Almond then performed for 200 guests in the warehouse next to his company's head office. Duncan was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Science (D.Sc.) by Glasgow Caledonian University on 5th July 2006 for services to business and charity. He was also awarded a Doctorate of Business Administration (DBA) from the University of Teesside on 6th February 2009. Duncan recently celebrated his 60th birthday at Murano’s in London with celebrities such as David Coulthard, James Caan, Theo Paphitis and Anna Ryder Richardson. A second party was held in the North East which was headlined by UK soul singer Beverley Knight and featured Chesney Hawkes. The celebration took place in a converted warehouse in Darlington, County Durham.  Copyright © 2013 : http://www.bannatyne.co.uk/biog.asp