17 May 2024 , 23:01
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As a man famous for being one of the Dragons’ Den panellists, the cause of a recent brush with death is something of an irony.
Businessman Duncan Bannatyne was on a trip to Mexico when a dragonfly bite on his hand became infected and came close to killing him. The 75-year-old was left suffering a severe and potentially fatal allergic reaction. “I almost died in Mexico, just a few weeks ago,” he recalls.
“I got this infection in my hand. It was a bite and it’s swelling. There were seven couples and a woman said ‘you have to get a doctor’.” Duncan was on the trip with wife Nigora, 44 and she called for help. “My wife phoned the doctor,” he continues. “I lay on the bed and he says he’s going to give me an injection because it’s a dragonfly. He injected me into my hip and I turn on my back.
“I was lying there, he was talking to my wife and I had this dryness come up through my oesophagus. I was so dry and I couldn’t speak. And my heart started - bump, bump bump bump bump, bump, bump.” Gasping, he managed to attract the attention of the medic again. Luckily the doctor hadn’t left the room and knew what had happened. He gave me this injection and it took it away. And then they got some pills from the pharmacist.” The incident clearly shocked Duncan and made him think about his mortality, sparking a decision he admits he’s “obsessed with”, writing a will.
“I’m meeting someone this week who’s planning my will,” he told BBC Radio 4’s The Bottom Line: Decisions that Made Me a Leader podcast with Evan Davis. “And when I’m gone what happens.” He adds: “I’m sure some time in your life somebody who’s very old says, listen, when I die, I want you to do this."
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Duncan Bannatyne, Kelly Hoppen, Deborah Meaden, Piers Linney, Peter Jones on Dragons Den (BBC)But he says, nobody wants to talk about dying. “Except now I want to do it, I want to put the plans in place.” It’s quite the task for a man estimated to be worth more than £400million, though he says he doesn’t actually have a number to put on how much money he has. I don’t even know,” he says. “And it depends what the company is worth.” Whatever the final figure, there’s no doubt it is a substantial amount and with six children and several grandchildren he’s got plenty of options for sharing it around.
Duncan and first wife Gail Brodie were married in 1983 and had four children together, Hollie, Abigail, Jennifer and Eve before splitting in 1994. With second wife Joanne McCue he had another two children, Emily and Thomas before divorcing.
Duncan met former translator Nigora, from Uzbekistan, in June 2015, when she was working at a London dental surgery and he was in to get some work done. With such vast sums involved in his life, Duncan admits his thoughts have also turned to philanthropy recently. We’re starting to think about it now,” he says. “I was talking to my wife. We’ll do medical missions with Operation Smile who operate on about 25 children with cleft, so I’ll fund a mission.” And he says the impact can’t be underestimated.
“It’s amazing, he says. “For about £1,000, it changes the whole family’s life, you know, because there are countries where the children are hidden away.” Duncan’s own early years were spent growing up relatively poor in Clydebank, one of seven children with his dad a labourer.
But even from a young age his entrepreneurial spirit was obvious. He asked for a paper round in the corner shop in order to get some money in the hope of buying a bike. But while the shop owner said there were no rounds free, he suggested another plan. Duncan added: “He said ‘you can go and get your own paper round if you want, go and knock on doors and get some more people. Get 100 names and I’ll give you a paper round’. And so that’s what I did. I spent two days after school going around and knocking on doors. I got 100 names.”
Duncan was on the trip to Mexico with wife Nigora (Daily Mirror)And he adds: “I bought my bike about six weeks later.“ The business bug had bitten but Duncan faced other challenges with undiagnosed dyslexia. “All my life I was considered to be a bit slower, learning difficulties or a bit stupid. And I was terrible at school. I didn’t know until another 30 years later that I had dyslexia,” he says. “It’s very different to today my son’s dyslexic and he has dyslexia lessons and it’s great."
He went on to join the Royal Navy but was discharged after a being court-martialed over a punch-up with an officer. Undeterred he bought an ice-cream van, then moved on to nursing homes before finally starting the health clubs which made him famous. He got the idea after a skiing accident which snapped the ligaments in his leg and he needed to find somewhere to build up the muscles again. And he says it was more than pride which made him give the gyms his name - he was sick of people getting his name wrong.
And while his gyms went from strength to strength, Duncan even decided he wanted another career in his 50s - as an actor. “I had the first of my many, midlife crisises. I did my acting and I tried it for a bit,” he says. “It was actually something to tick off.”
Soon after came his stint on the original panel of Dragon’s Den which he appeared on for a decade before deciding to leave, saying his thoughts turned to family as he got older and needing more time. And while there’s no doubting his success, it seems it wasn’t entirely planned. “I called my autobiography Anyone Can Do It,” he laughs. “But sometimes I think it should have called it ‘accidental millionaire’.”
- Duncan Bannatyne’s full interview on BBC Radio 4’s The Bottom Line is also available on BBC Sounds from today.