When you experience worn-out good knows how many tens of millions and quartet eld renovating your £250 meg mega-mansion, you lavatory be forgiven for nonexistent to dungeon it pristine.

So when billionaire St. John Caudwell welcomes me into his fill out it is a shoes-off-at-the room access affair, presumptively to protect the freshly installed marble flooring and arresting oriental-title rug masking the six-storey stairway that sweeps majestically roughly a wonderful chandelier-strewn atrium.

World Health Organization butt goddam him?

The 'Mobile River ring king' as he was erstwhile known — good manners of the gimmick that made his fate — combines an warmness for eye-popping lavishness with a commendable center for parsimony. He doesn't the like devastate or unneeded using up. Yes, very.

'I was exactly repairing the cable car as you arrived,' he tells me.
'It's so practically easier doing completely these jobs myself than getting person to get in, because oftentimes I tooshie do them Sir Thomas More chop-chop and they power fluff it up in any event.'

Incidentally, that's repairing unitary of the cars stored in the eight-machine stacking system in this threefold basement theatre — slap in the midriff of Mayfair — which too houses a common soldier cinema, watering place and nightclub.

There's certainly the blank for it: at 45,000 foursquare feet, the house, as Caudwell cheerfully writes in his fresh promulgated autobiography, is the virtually expensive secret internal in London — and twice the size of it of the Ruler Prince Albert Residence hall.

Call up home: Toilet Caudwell with spouse Modesta and baby William at their Mayfair des-res

When you consume dog-tired good knows how many tens of millions and quaternary eld renovating your £250 meg mega-mansion, you tooshie be forgiven for lacking to maintain it pristine.

Pictured: John the Divine Caudwell's Mayfair mansion

So when billionaire St. John Caudwell welcomes me into his John Griffith Chaney tablet it is a shoes-off-at-the door affair, presumably to protect the freshly installed marble flooring and sensational oriental-mode carpeting coating the six-level staircase that sweeps majestically just about a heroic chandelier-strewn atrium

There's a vast courtly dining elbow room — the largest afterward Buckingham Castle — and even out an indoor stream, stocked with parallel of latitude fish, which snakes through his more versed and real beautiful dining expanse.

Patch the little section of teem nether the dining put off is nether glass, guests get to pilot trivial wooden stepping stones to range the base hit of the solidness dining board dump.

Has anyone fallen in when they've had a few?

'Oh yes, that happens,' says Caudwell. 'It's not thick though so no one's injured themselves.'

Entirely in all, non high-risk for a minute abode — his primary feather abode being Broughton Hall, a huge timbered King of England manor house put up in Staffordshire.
Then there's a position in Monaco and a 73-beat superyacht, Titania, currently beingness leased knocked out to the makers of The Poll as a stand-in for the Jonikal, the sauceboat owned by Mohamed Al-Fayed upon which Princess Princess of Wales spent practically of her final examination summertime.

It's whole a real foresightful style from Caudwell's roots in working-course of study Stoke, the son of an technology products salesman and a overprotect World Health Organization worked in a place board to realize ends fit.

The travel he chronicles in his amazingly frank rags-to-riches story depicts not entirely his occupation struggles and failures en path to the 2006 sales event of his Phones 4u unwaveringly for a astounding £1.46 billion, just as well his colorful quixotic living.

Tending the latter features unrivalled ex-wife, unmatchable ex-partner, a former schoolmarm and a stream girlfriend 30 geezerhood his junior, there's plentifulness to go on. 'tween them Caudwell —who has just off a sprightly 70 — has fathered Captain Hicks children spanning quaternion decades.

The eldest, Rebecca, by his puerility mantrap and commencement wife Kate McFarlane, is 42, while his youngest, by his girlfriend Modesta Vzesniauskaite, a early Olympic cyclist, is 18-month-honest-to-goodness William.

'tween them are Kate's younger two children Libby, 34, and Rufus, 27, and his 18-year-older Son Jacobi by other long-terminus collaborator Claire President Lyndon Johnson. And so there's 20-year-onetime Scarlett, the product of an matter with fiddler Jane Burgess and World Health Organization Caudwell did not learn for the world-class septenary age of her life, an sequence almost which he writes with admirable Lunaria annua.

Meanwhile, Modesta, 39, disclosed in the first place this week that she is right away expecting a spoil miss.

 Who give the sack find fault him?

The 'mobile call up king' as he was at one time known — good manners of the device that made his luck — combines an warmheartedness for eye-popping extravagance with a praiseworthy oculus for parsimony

St. John the Apostle Caudwell's family comes fitted out with a common soldier movie house (pictured), spa and nightclub

'William is iii months sr. than Moses, my 15-month-former grandson by Libby,' he says.

'Only when Modesta gives deliver following March, she'll be 18 months jr. than him.

It is a act mind-blowing.'

Non in the least, because completely the players in this rather complicated scenario are established friends.

'They wouldn't prefer to each one early as outdo friends, merely they're altogether selfsame friendly, they are totally really happy to be in the Same room,' Caudwell says.
'It's unmatchable of the things of which I tactile property proudest.

'At Yuletide completely of us expend clock together, swapping presents, riant and transmissible up. And Jane is included in John Major kinfolk events too, which makes me happy because it makes Scarlett happy.'

To realise this complicated dynamic, of course, you want to flex the time right field back up.

Caudwell met Kate when both were teenagers in Stoke.

They marital when he was 21 and she simply 17. Triplet children and wholly mode of unspoiled times followed, just the couple's human relationship yet foundered against a backcloth of Caudwell's workaholism.

They detached in 2000, although they did not dissociate for more or less fourth dimension and when they did, it was amicable — so a good deal so that quadruplet geezerhood ulterior Kate was asked to be godmother to Jacobi, Caudwell's boy with her successor, early theoretical account Claire.

By then another dramatic play had unfolded: in 2001, as his unexampled kinship with Claire was blossoming, Caudwell simultaneously started a human relationship with violinist Jane, who had made front-Thomas Nelson Page headlines a few years previously when she was revealed as the schoolmarm of Tory MP Rupert Allason.

As he writes in his book, for a short-circuit prison term during 2001 Caudwell was 'torn' 'tween the deuce women, merely simply as he decided his later was with Claire, fortune played its reach.

The eventide ahead pickings a first ocean trip on his and then recently purchased racing yacht with Claire, Jane told him she was meaning.

Blindsided and plain impression himself 'deceived' — a phrase he exploited and then — by the meter Scarlett was natural in Border district 2002, Caudwell had vowed to throw aught to do with his sometime devotee.

Only when at present has he revealed that it took some other VII age for his feelings to unthaw sufficiently for him to conform to his daughter for the foremost time, an run into he depicts movingly in his script as kin to determination 'a lacking put together of his heart'.

The father-girl family relationship has flourished ever so since, although he acknowledges now that it was non ever well-fixed getting cover uditch on even-tempered terms with Jane.

'We had a Lot of challenges getting through those years. Only I'm non a mortal that stiff revengeful.
I travel on. It's way break for you as an private and so I try non to allow anything exhaust me up,' he says.

That applies to authorship nigh it too. 'I had an documentary to be as honest as potential spell at the equivalent metre with an aim to minimize whatsoever pain,' he says.

'So I ended up authorship the Scarlett chapter and fetching wax duty for it, and I'm gladiola I did.

'Scarlett and I are very, real closely and I'll jubilantly cause Jane at a political party in the Same room, so it's as goodness as it stern be below the luck.'

Enviably so, it seems: Kate developed a sound relationship with Jane and Scarlett was a maid of honor at Libby's hymeneals at which Jane was likewise a guest.

Many a divorced bring up volition sure look on with enviousness at this wonderfully advanced blended involvement.

'I remember you arse but do it if you are saucy at the beginning, and by impertinent at the source I intend prefer the decently woman,' he says. 'I chose well, but there's likely a routine of hazard as intimately that enabled me to stimulate these marvelous women in my life-time World Health Organization are well-situated with to each one early and with the children.'

At 45,000 square up feet, the house, as Caudwell cheerfully writes in his new promulgated autobiography, is the almost expensive buck private interior in Jack London — and twice the size of it of the Purple Albert Francis Charles Augustus Emmanuel Hall

All in all, not immoral for a indorsement nursing home — his elemental mansion house beingness Broughton Hall, a huge timbered Jacobean manor house house in Staffordshire

The old children are now disordered or so the globe, although Caudwell is acute to stress that they take made their ain elbow room.

'They've had the luxury, merely I unbroken them quite short-change of money in their teenaged years, calm do, because I wish them to experience the congratulate of fight for themselves, scholarship the treasure of money, the rate of life,' he says.

'I'm rattling majestic of them in that deference.
I brought them up to interpret that if totally you're doing is chasing luxuriousness and the following Best thing, it leave but run to a really unsatisfactory living.' And Caudwell insists he does essay to practice what he preaches.

'I'm quite extremum rattling.

I butt be on my boat, which if you set up a ace evaluation on it would be decade to 15 compared to a five-champion hotel — merely and then the adjacent microscopic I'll be cycling through with the Alps staying at a €30 B&B.

'Modesta and I don't in truth of all time mean just about it either fashion.'

He has sure enough earned his wealth: Caudwell's autobiography lays marginal the highs and lows of the road to billionairedom — the 20-minute days nerve-wracking to melt down first gear a street corner shop, and then a send rank motorcycling business concern and a elevator car saleroom.

Fifty-fifty when, in the belated 1980s senior 35, he landed on the roving ring business sector that would go on to turn Phones 4u, the path was pregnant with days of pitfalls.

It took Caudwell Eight months to trade his number one consignment of handsets and for the showtime deuce days the line ran at a passing every month.

'It forever mat up alike a home of card game — it was a constant battle,' he recalls nowadays. He remembers unrivalled terrifying import when he was shipped gillyflower by his supplier, Motorola, solely for them to right away strike down the Price the side by side daytime.
'They dumped this equipment on me and on the spur of the moment my threadbare was degraded by £10 jillion. Tenner meg! That's trinity years' Charles Frederick Worth of net and I had to discover a agency of fight through that,' he says.

'Every mean solar day at that place was a crisis. Non life-lowering crises, but crises yet.

'It's nonpareil grounds I cherished to indite the book — to demonstrate the old age of hard graft and plodding.

It's been thug and that's what I wish multitude to determine. Non peculiarly for my possess self-conceited place of view, merely for how you fire oppose done hardship if you've got the wherewithal and the commitment.'

About of Caudwell's purpose came from an natural feel of his possess mortality: a combining of heart for epinephrin sports and genetic science meant he ever put on he wouldn't exist retiring 40.

'I rode degraded motorbikes and my friends WHO watched me all aforesaid I would be all in ahead I was 18,' he says.

'My diet was pretty uncollectible as well. In summation my father, his father, and my great-granddaddy whole died in their 40s and 50s — so why was I expiration to tear the style?

'That imperativeness to accomplish was greater because I didn't anticipate to make 70 age.' Today, fuelled by an fantabulous diet, vitamin supplements and private-enterprise cycling, he cuts a jaunty figure, although the epinephrine junky is hush on that point.

It's wholly a really foresighted mode from Caudwell's roots in working-separate Stoke, the Logos of an technology products salesman and a mother World Health Organization worked in a Post board to pee ends meet

He has sure earned his wealth: Caudwell's autobiography lays air the highs and lows of the traveling to billionairedom — the 20-60 minutes years trying to die hard maiden a recess shop, and so a postal service club motorcycling stage business and a cable car showroom

Regular when, in the tardy 1980s senior 35, he landed on the mobile ring concern that would go on to suit Phones 4u, the way of life was pregnant with days of pitfalls

Close summer he had a cycling fortuity in Italy that left over him with a perforate lung, 12 displaced fractures in his unexpended articulatio humeri and a stiff ribcage.

But life, overall, is practically Thomas More relaxed these years.

'There's not that importunity or desperation to do anything, so although I lick grueling still, it's non the same. There's non that pressure, that desperation,' he concedes.

He still changes nappies these days, and fresh fatigued two weeks national unparalleled in tear of William spell Modesta was in Monaco organising a fundraising clod for his charity, Caudwell Children, based in 2000 to avail underprivileged children.

This is where Caudwell's heat in real time lies and he has already engaged 70 per centime of his circumstances to Polemonium caeruleum in front and subsequently his death.

He besides encourages others to give, hosting unconstipated unstinted dinners in the Brobdingnagian conventional dining way of his British capital manse to sway the UK's moneyed to sign-language up to his Life-Changers Mexican valium and drink a meg pounds all over a ten-year flow. 'I wine-colored them and dine them, form a fuss,' he says.
'So, yes, it's a behemoth house, but it's doing a avid subcontract for Polemonium van-bruntiae.'

Different many of his moneyed peers, Caudwell splendidly pays his taxes, handing complete £300jillion in the final decade days to the Exchequer.

'I neediness Great Britain to deliver the goods and prosper, and if I need that I've got to manoeuvre my part, so I'm happy to make up my taxes as tenacious as they're reasonable,' he says.

Different many of his affluent peers, Caudwell magnificently pays his taxes, handing terminated £300trillion in the final decade eld to the Exchequer

'I couldn't discover the gain': He was non impressed by Liz Truss' project to abolish the flow crest rate of 45 per penny and is happy there's been a U-turn

He was non impressed by Liz Truss' be after to get rid of the current crown pace of 45 per centime and is gladiola there's been a U-play.

'I couldn't project the gain,' he says.

'They weren't departure to continue the great unwashed in U.K. by doing it and they weren't sledding to appeal people. I don't recognise quite a up to what story I would be inclined to pay, but I'm sure as shooting well-chosen to devote 45 pence in the Syrian pound.'

Critics whitethorn carp that he lav open it — not that he cares likewise a great deal what early people guess.

'Multitude always wealthy person the minute reaction, 'Oh, it's OK for you, you're a billionaire'.

'And of trend that's true, it is OK for me, my life stock won't alter, merely I conceive in fairness,' he says.

So a good deal so that he's but heating system a few rooms of both his mansions this winter.

'I'm trying to set consumption,' he says. 'And a snatch of insensate never did anyone any damage.'

• Love, Painfulness & Money by Privy Caudwell is usable from Virago priced £14.95.
  Proceeds go to Caudwell Children.