Last updated at 14:43, Wednesday, 01 October 2008

At primary school, business supremo Brian Scowcroft was bottom of his class. But he caught up and is now investing millions in Cumbria's new academies. Jane Loughran visits him at his Windermere home and learns about his adrenaline-fuelled lifestyle, and the tragic loss which drives his philanthropy. Photography by Phil Rigby

Brian Scowcroft with one of his many passions: his 1975 MV Agusta 750

Three years ago, Brian Scowcroft’s attitude to life took a fundamental turn; his values, hopes and dreams were all subjected to an almighty re-evaluation after the death of his eldest son.
Suddenly, making money became far less important than using his personal fortune to improve the life of others in his adopted county of Cumbria. When his son Richard died at the age of 30, his multi-millionaire father Brian was reborn as this county’s most generous philanthropist.
The education of future generations of county schoolchildren is now his passion. Already in Carlisle, 2,650 students are attending the embryonic academies which he has sponsored to the tune of £2m. Academies for Barrow-in-Furness and Egremont are next in his sights.
The man who is now shaping the education of generations of Cumbrian schoolchildren was anything but a model pupil. At primary school, Brian was bottom of the bottom class. At the age of 10, he still couldn’t read and he failed his 11-plus exam. He was sent to a private school in Worsley, Lancashire, where he was given enough attention to catch up academically but classroom slogging still wasn’t his priority. At the age of 17 when he was doing his A-levels, Brian became a father and then married his first wife.
“I suppose I was a typical rebel; always in trouble at school. ’’ he says. Eventually, he came good studying economics at Manchester University and qualifying as a chartered accountant before working for his father Ken, the founder of Swinton Insurance.
However, 52-year-old Brian’s current mission to improve the prospects of our county’s schoolchildren is fired by his deep desire to provide a tribute to his extraordinary son Richard, who died just over three years ago. As a tot, Richard was always in scrapes; a daredevil boy who was always being rushed to hospital after a minor accident. But at the age of just 10, an aggressive growth in his left leg worried his parents. Richard was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer.
For the rest of his life, Richard was in and out of hospital. At the age of 24, all the bone in his left leg was removed and replaced with metal. “We were told the cancer was unlikely to spread but it did. By the time Richard was 26, it was in his lungs,’’ says Brian.
Richard was a big personality who refused to allow his illness to be the dominating force in his life; he swam the length of Windermere in eight hours with a calliper on his leg; he went on motorbike holidays with his dad who had to lift him on and off the bike.
One of Brian’s proudest moments was Richard’s wedding day; all the Scowcroft family and their friends witnessed Richard’s courage and sheer bloody-minded grittiness when he walked down the aisle just five weeks after his “good’’ leg was amputated below the knee.
Brian says: “Richard told the surgeon that his greatest wish was to walk down the aisle on his wedding day and was told that he had absolutely no chance as the stump would be raw for months. Richard just refused to accept the fact and persuaded his doctors to fit him with a temporary wooden leg.
“On his wedding day he walked up the aisle on a false leg, with the aid of two crutches. He left one of the crutches with me as he stood to say his vows and when the ceremony was over, he gave me the other crutch and walked back down the aisle unaided with his bride. It was all so typical of Richard.’’
When Richard was no longer fit enough to work for his father at Carlisle industrial estate, Kingmoor Park, he spent his time studying for a four-year Open University degree in chartered surveying; he already had a business degree. An invigilator came to his home to allow him to sit his finals. Ten days later he was dead; he died on his first wedding anniversary. His degree was awarded with a distinction posthumously and six months after his death, his daughter Isabella Rose was born.

It is quite clear that Richard wasn’t just a much loved son; he was an individual who won his father’s deepest respect and admiration and who continues to be his greatest inspiration. “He taught me to keep things in perspective and to carry on whatever the difficulties. I think Richard changed some of my attitudes. I am more relaxed, more philosophical about life than I used to be,’’ says Brian.
Essentially a deeply private man, Brian struggles to talk about Richard and the loss of him; the burden of grief will always be with him but he has chosen to channel it into positive deeds. Since Richard’s death, Brian has focussed on helping the young as well as becoming a generous donor to cancer-related charities including the oncology unit at Barrow-in-Furness.
Certainly, it was Richard’s zeal for learning right to the end of his life that prompted Brian, a former schoolboy rebel, to take the risk of spearheading the drive to overhaul the county’s education system, starting with Carlisle. “When I made a bid to develop Kingmoor Park, the city authorities chose me for the job over a number of public companies. Now I feel that I owe something back,’’ he says.
Brian is acutely aware of the sceptics who question what he knows about the world of education. He counters that a fresh approach, unhampered by weary orthodoxies, might be just as relevant and stimulating in education as it is in business. What’s the difference, he asks, between education and the health service? After all, it isn’t doctors who run the mechanics of the NHS.
Named after his eldest son and the granddaughter who was born six months after her father’s death, the Richard Rose Academies will be up and running in their full glory by September 2010. Brian is excited by the unique elements of the scheme.
For instance, the University of Cumbria will set up a teacher training college on the Morton site in Carlisle with more than 100 post-graduate students; a cunning plan to snare the best of the students and keep them in Cumbria’s schools as well as providing a significant number of trainees to help in the academies which will offer the broadest possible academic curriculum.
A £5m youth zone is planned which Brian says will offer fantastic facilities to all the children in the surrounding area, using the existing AstroTurf pitch and sports hall and adding sports and drama facilities, a skate park, a club for children aged 11 to 19 and perhaps access to a swimming pool. He hopes that outreach facilities will be provided by professional services and organisations helping the centre to lead the battle against youth crime, drug and alcohol problems.
“The Department for Children, Schools and Families regard The Richard Rose Academy as a test case to see if other youth zones should be rolled out,’’ says Brian.
The educational revolution is visionary, all-embracing and an almighty gamble; Brian is using the same go-getting characteristics and energy to found model new schools as he did to create a business empire that has generated family assets estimated at more than £180m.
Brian was born in Salford and at the age of two moved to Swinton where he lived in bog-standard semi until he was nine years old and his father Ken had a brainwave. Ken worked for an estate agent where he ended up in charge of the life and pensions side of the business. He suggested to his boss that they started selling motor insurance; when the idea was rejected he asked if anyone minded if he started doing it himself from home at the weekends.
In 1964, Ken opened the first high street insurance shop in the country. When Brian joined his dad’s business in 1981, Swinton Insurance was operating from 73 shops, mostly in the north west. Six years later, Brian admits he had elbowed his way to the top of the organisation, ridding himself of rivals until he gained the title of chief executive and expanded the business to include 235 shops.
Within another two years, a deal with two other minority shareholders and Sun Alliance allowed him to create an insurance empire of more than 700 shops and a business which employed 3,500 people.
When the Scowcroft family sold Swinton Insurance to Sun Alliance in 1998 for £130m, Brian was just 35. He was rich enough to never have to lift a finger again. So what stopped him from spending the rest of his life sunning himself in the Caribbean?
“A key factor was my desire to prove that I could make a success in my own right without any help from my dad,’’ he says.
Brian dipped his toe into the industrial property market in Manchester and created a sizeable portfolio in the north, before buying his most ambitious site, Kingmoor Park in Carlisle, a derelict 400 acre site; he spent £7m of his own money developing it into a thriving business park which now includes his own company’s headquarters. “With most of my properties I was simply the highest bidder but the city of Carlisle chose me to develop Kingmoor when I was in competition with public companies. The people of Carlisle made me feel wanted and now I want to do something in return,’’ he says.
Brian has immense personal charm; it is easy to see how he is able to manoeuvre his way through big money deals.
However, like anyone who has succeeded as a major player in business, he is capable of making cut-throat decisions. It is also his instinct to slay rivals and to stand out from the pack.
He admits freely that one of the reasons he has chosen Cumbria as the beneficiary of his philanthropy is that it is easier to make an impact and see the rewards of what he does than it would be in his native Manchester. He says: “After the IRA bomb in Manchester in 1996, the city centre was transformed by the efforts and money of a number of people. It is easier for one man to make his mark in Cumbria,’’ he says.
Brian runs a 1,400-acre estate near Bowness on Windermere where he lives in with his second wife Catherine and their children, David, 13 and Adam, 12. His mother, father and sister and niece live nearby on the estate. Also in close proximity are Richard’s widow Chloe and their daughter Isabella Rose. His two elder children Andrew, aged 33 and Louise, 28 and three other grandchildren, Lauren and Harvey, both aged eight and five-year-old Harry are frequent visitors.
Brian likes to keep his family close; he revels in the role of doting grandfather and proudly drives his brood to school whenever he can.

The Scowcroft family lifestyle looks idyllic. The children can romp in some of the most beautiful land in the Lake District without leaving their family’s own land. Brian oversees the management of his farming interests and his shoot; he has planted 41,000 native trees on land where red deer and roe deer have made their home. He has created ponds and encouraged all manner of birdlife; coots, duck, and moorhens abound.
But Brian is too restless and driven to play Farmer Giles for more than a few days at a time. He is addicted to risk taking and living dangerously. He loves to test his ability to endure; pitting himself against nature; daring himself on further and further. The safe option is unspeakably dull; predictability withers his soul.
If he goes skiing, it has to be off piste in Verbier where he has one of his several homes and when he flies in a helicopter, he prefers to be at the controls. When he swims, he likes to swim the entire 11-mile length of Windermere and he enjoys sailing.
In 2002, his name was entered in the Guinness Book of Records when he, along with son Andrew and three friends, did the Five Peaks challenge, climbing the highest mountains in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic in less than 24 hours, raising thousands of pounds for charity.
“My biggest buzz comes from skiing when there might be avalanche conditions; I have a real need to take risks and get my adrenaline pumping although I am more careful than I used to be. Nowadays, I ski in the company of a guide; in the past I just took off on my own. In my early days in business I would have risked everything I owned whereas now I would assess my risks more carefully,’’ Brian says.
Still, this is not a man who will ever look comfortable dressed in woolly jumpers on a golf course. A cosy, comfortable lifestyle holds little attraction for him. Cool linens and biker’s leathers are Brian’s style.
There is a large shed on the estate where he keeps his toys which include vintage and sports cars including Sixties American cars, Thirties European cars, a Lamborghini, a Ferrari, a Bentley and a Rolls Royce among others.
“All my toys are based on my belief that he who dies with the most toys wins,’’ he laughs.
In fact, if he had to choose between his most expensive cars and his motorbikes, the bikes would win. He gave up his helicopter rides from his home to Kingmoor Park in favour of roaring off to work on his sports motorbike.
A couple of times a year, he takes off abroad with his son Andrew and a group of close male friends and they take in the sights on their Harley Davidsons. This year Spain and Morocco are the destinations.
However Windermere remains one of his true loves; he lost his heart to it when he was just 12 years old and his family owned a caravan rather than a beautiful valley.
“My friend’s parents had a caravan near Windermere and I joined the South Windermere sailing club. Next thing, my mum and dad bought a touring caravan and started taking it to Windermere. Within a couple of years, my dad bought a weekend house near the lake,’’ he says.

His other big love is Manchester United and the relative ease of the journey to Old Trafford from Windermere is a major reason for his choice of home location.
“It only takes me one hour and 15 minutes to reach Old Trafford,’’ he says enthusiastically. However like all great loves, Man Utd is also a subject of great pain; his worst business misjudgement involved his beloved football club.
“Stupidly, I didn’t buy Manchester United 20 years ago when I had the chance. Michael Knighton was in the middle of a deal to buy 55 per cent of the club from Martin Edwards for eleven million; he wanted to sell the transaction on for twelve million, taking the profit.
“At the time I decided not to mix business with pleasure which, looking back, was simply ridiculous. Later, my dad said he would have supported me if I had needed financial help which was something I didn’t really want to hear.
“The Glazer family bought Manchester United three years ago for £810m and it is probably worth a lot more today. I try to never miss a match. I put nothing in my diary until I have the fixtures for the following season. I go with my three sons and my grandson.
“One of my best moments this year was when I attended the club’s match against Arsenal with my parents, my sons and my grandson – four generations watching the same game.
“In fact, the best three minutes of my life were the final moments of the European Cup Final in 1999 when Manchester United was playing Bayern Munich; they were 1-0 down and went 3-1 up in the last three minutes,’’ adds Brian.
Three minutes of adrenaline-surging high drama laced with skill, luck and risk. Easy to see why those moments remain wrapped round Brian Scowcroft’s heart.

First published at 14:34, Wednesday, 01 October 2008
Published by http://www.cumbrialife.co.uk