Sir Richard Branson: ‘I don’t trust myself with heroin’

Sir Richard Branson, with his 300-plus companies, has been an ambassador for entrepreneurship, crazy sporting activities (attempting world records in hot-air ballooning; playing golf in the dark), space travel and, with his most recent announcement, deep-sea exploration (Virgin Oceanic). But now, perhaps, a new frontier-breaking role awaits him: the grand ambassador for dope.

He is telling me how he introduced his aged parents from the respectable Home Counties, Edward, a retired barrister, and Eve, a former air hostess, to hashish some years ago when they were on holiday in Bali. He looks slightly put out by my amused expression as he offers this sober, if halting, explanation: “I think, I mean, I think that most parents… most parents should, you know, experience dope in their lifetime. I mean, maybe, if you drink… if you drink gin and tonic, why not see it as an alternative? I think that, for some people, dope is a great alternative.”

So how did his parents like it? “They laughed their heads off and, yeah, they had a delightful evening.” Did they end up swapping their G&Ts for a spliff and growing their own? “I think the problem was that when we got back to England, my father had to become a magistrate again and so they thought it was best not to…” A big laugh.

When Branson joined his son, Sam, on the latter’s gap year (rather unusually), more cross-generational toking took place, on the glorious beaches of Australia’s hippy stronghold, Byron Bay. Father and son spent time chilling, gazing at spectacular sunsets and learning how to board-surf, although kite surfing remains the 60-year-old’s favourite sport. “It was very good of him to let me join him,” Sam’s father says. “I’ve been working since I left school at 15 and missed out on a gap year. So it was nice to end up on a beach with my son and we had a blast.”

Do you smoke dope regularly? “I don’t because I find it makes me tired, but I’ve had one or two great nights where I’ve had the right kind of dope and it’s been fantastic.”

The wrong kind being skunk, presumably? “Oh, I definitely wouldn’t take skunk. I think that’s madness. And it’s one of the problems of drugs being illegal that substances like skunk come onto the marketplace and it’s no good for anybody. But ordinary hashish is one of the least dangerous drugs there is. It’s much less dangerous than alcohol or cigarettes.”

Sir Richard has experimented with various drugs, but draws the line at heroin. “I haven’t done that because I don’t trust myself,” he says. “I’m a fairly addictive personality and that’s why I have to behave, because I know that if I liked heroin I might take a lot of it,” he grins.

He feels strongly that the war on drugs has not been effective and questions the morality of taking a punitive approach to addicts. “I don’t think anybody should be punished for taking drugs. In America, they have sort of 60 per cent poor and black people in their prisons for taking drugs and it’s an absolute fact that if you try to help people get off drugs and spend the money on that, then the benefit to society is something like eight times better than sending them to prison.

“So I’m actually part of a global drug commission looking at whether the war on drugs has worked. [The commission, which includes Kofi Annan, George Shultz and the writers Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa, published its results this week.] It’s obvious that the war on drugs has not worked and it’s done enormous amounts of harm and there must be a better way to deal with it.”

He’s watching the Los Angeles model with interest. “There are drug shops all over LA now – they do it for medical purposes, you know. LA taxes it and makes sure that the drugs are pure, and there are needle exchanges where people can get clean needles and get their fix of heroin or methadone – so they don’t get HIV – and when they’re ready to get help, they go into a drug clinic. Shoving everybody into prison is just not the answer.”

We are sitting in the private dining room of Branson’s Babylon restaurant, which overlooks the Roof Gardens – 100ft above Kensington High Street – with its mature oak and lime trees and joyous splashes of cherry blossom, its brook and decorative bridges, and famous pink flamingoes called, in a distinctly Branson-esque “fun” touch, Splosh and Pecks and Bill and Ben.

The table is covered in plates of exotic fruit, as well as cookies and jelly beans, none of which tempts the boss, who orders a latte and – despite arriving 20-odd minutes late for our interview – ducks out to take a call on his mobile phone. On his return, he switches it off and endeavours to concentrate on the business at hand – which, from his viewpoint, is to discuss the 10th anniversary of Babylon and the 30th year since he bought the Roof Gardens, after he had been barred from Regine’s nightclub in 1981 for being too scruffy.

“Yeah, I was turned away because I had jeans on and so I went back to my houseboat [Duende, which is still moored in Little Venice, where he brought up his daughter, Holly; he and his wife, Joan, used to have a sign across the fence: ‘Do not feed the baby’]. When I got in, there was a telephone call from Regine [Zylberberg]’s partner, who apologised profusely and invited me back for a drink, during which he said that he’d run out of money and would I like to buy the place and he also had a big store on Oxford Street, where we had our tiny little record shop, and would I like to buy that, as well?” Branson decided he would, thank you very much,

“So we had a job lot – the Roof Gardens and what became the Virgin Megastore down by Tottenham Court Road.” What a result… just as well you don’t take offence easily. “Oh, life’s too short to take offence. I definitely don’t believe in taking offence,” he says.

Branson, in person, could hardly be more different to his annoying, slightly wally-ish persona although, admittedly, he has had his cooler moments. As someone who came of age in the Seventies, my fellow students and I preferred to buy our records from the Virgin shops, which had a more relaxed vibe than the established names. His signing of Mike Oldfield, with his Tubular Bells, was a genius move (even though it was the brainwave of his cousin, Simon Draper, who dictated the tastes of Virgin Music), and he deftly rebranded his record label from the patchouli-soaked likes of Gong into the punk era by grabbing the Sex Pistols when they had been dropped by EMI and releasing their first single, God Save the Queen, and, later, Boy George and Culture Club with their huge hits, Do You Really Want to Hurt Me and Karma Chameleon.

But then he seemed to transform himself into a self-publicising, right-wing hippy, posing (most uncoolly) for various photo opportunities with Margaret Thatcher and taking on her appointed role of litter czar (for which he was instantly lampooned in the press). This was unfair as well as a wasted opportunity (and one which still rankles with him), as it turns out that the project was intended to be a sort of job creation scheme for the vast numbers of unemployed (more than three million), matching their skills to projects that would benefit the environment.

There was a time when it seemed you couldn’t escape images of Branson – the beard, the wolfish grin, those awful jumpers – doing some kind of ridiculous stunt: the endless ballooning attempts or dolling up in a wedding dress, for which he shaved off his beard, to promote Virgin Brides. But he gained our sympathy in the David and Goliath battle against Lord King and British Airways’ systematic “dirty tricks” campaign to destroy Virgin Atlantic; Branson sued and shared his personal damages award of £500,000 among all his Virgin Atlantic staff.

His manner is, frankly, incredible in someone who routinely hobnobs with world leaders and is the head of a vast global business empire, the 19th richest person in the UK, worth £3.08 billion at the last count. It makes you understand how easy Lord King found it to underestimate him (to his cost) – even beyond Branson’s distinctly non-boardroom appearance. He seems unable to meet your gaze, his speech pattern is often amazingly hesitant, at times close to a stammer, littered with “ummms” and “errs” and “ahhhs”. His leg was injured in a skiing accident at the beginning of the year, so he has a temporary limp, but his posture is poor anyway, with slightly rounded shoulders. For all the brashness that one supposes he must have to perform those stunts, his manner and body language – however unlikely this sounds – are of someone who suffers from low self-esteem.

I ask Branson, directly, whether he’s shy, since he doesn’t look me in the eye. “I was thinking…” he says. “No, I’m not… If one based people’s characters on them looking you in the eye, I would definitely fail,” he says, although it certainly didn’t come out as smoothly as this. So are you shy? “Um, well, it would sound rather a ridiculous thing for people to read about Richard Branson that he’s shy… But I used to be and I think that… I think I’ve overcome it…

“But I’m often interviewed and after this one, I’m off to do one in front of thousands of people in Holland and, anyway, I’ve had to train myself to overcome it, but I used to be a little bit shy, yes.”

Since he says that interviews are “generally my shrink-time” (although he has never been to a therapist, even when he was uncharacteristically depressed on reaching middle age), let’s take him back to his childhood. His glamorous mother, Eve, keen to instil her children with an independent spirit from an early age, deposited a four-year-old Richard several miles from their home and told him to find his way back through the fields. Unsurprisingly, he got hopelessly lost.

Not many years later, she sent him off on his bike in the dark to cycle to Bournemouth, 50 miles away, with a packed lunch, and told him to find some water on the way. (I recall Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood doing a version of this with their son, Joe Corre.) All this character-building stuff seemed to stiffen young Ricky’s spine satisfactorily, but he was distinctly less appreciative of his parents’ decision to send him off to board at the age of 8.

“I was 7¾, actually, and I don’t know if I mentioned it in my book [his autobiography, Losing My Virginity; he did] but on my very first night at school, I threw up and the matron made me clean up my sheets,” he says.

In the book, he writes about “feeling utterly lonely, unhappy and frightened”, and how after he vomited with anxiety, the matron scolded him and, “I can still remember the humiliation I felt”; how he could feel only confusion and resentment towards his parents “and a terrible fear of what lay in store for me”. His fears were justified. At the age of 8, he still couldn’t read because – not that anyone knew it at that time – he was profoundly dyslexic and short-sighted. Being unable to read, write or spell meant for those teachers that you were either stupid or lazy, “And at prep school, you were beaten for both. I was soon being beaten once or twice a week for doing poor classwork or confusing the date of the Battle of Hastings.”

At his next school, there were more beatings: “If you couldn’t spell or couldn’t add up, you were beaten until you did.” Threatened with expulsion (for a nocturnal visit to the headmaster’s daughter) and unable to bear the reaction of his parents, he wrote a suicide note – the psychiatrists would surely have a field day with this – and started walking towards the cliffs, when the teachers and boys managed to catch up with him and pull him back. All of this is played for laughs in the book, but it’s interesting that he was so alarmed at the thought of his parents’ anger that he was prompted to pull such a stunt.

From there to Stowe, where he finally came into his own, launched his Student magazine and left school at 15 with his headmaster’s parting words: “I predict that you will either go to prison or become a millionaire.”

When I ask him about those early schooldays, he says: “You would have thought that we would all have been completely f***ed up, and maybe we are a little bit, but somehow we survived it. But those poor kids who are still sent away to male-only boarding schools… I was certainly not going to do it to my kids and, fortunately, times have changed, I think.”

Both Holly and Sam did go to boarding school but not until they were 16 – St Edward’s in Oxford, “where my daughter became head girl and thoroughly enjoyed it, and they had a blast”.

Branson looks fit and tanned in a blue shirt and jeans and dark jacket and insists that, apart from his wrecked knee, he feels as healthy and limber as he did when he was 20. Although he never got into Virgin Births (shame, it would have been a great marketing name), I wonder about the other end of the spectrum – Virgin Rest Homes and, even, Virgin Deaths. Surely, this would be a terrific business opportunity with all us baby-boomers staggering on into our nineties.

I tell him about a concept an old friend of mine and I came up with so we wouldn’t have to face the existing grim options – to form a “club”, put money in a fund, get a fantastic old mansion, with Van Morrison and Dylan instead of muzac, and dope instead of some numbing chemical pacifier. But, surely, Branson could rise to this challenge?

“It sounds like I’ll check into whatever clinic it is that you’re thinking of setting up,” he says. “I’m lucky because I live on a beautiful island [Necker] and it’s run by lots of fun, young people and certainly in my old age I would love that kind of atmosphere and I’m sure that a lot of older people would. Everyone does well when there are lots of young people around you, and I definitely think there should be a lot more fun places for people to go in their old age than there are at the moment.

“Virgin has evolved over the years based on my own experiences and we are already into health clubs and health clinics. As I get older, I suspect there could well be a time when we take on Saga and give them a run for their money and look after people in their old age.”

In his libertarian way, he says: “I certainly have nothing against euthanasia. If people wish to kill themselves, they should be free to do whatever they want in this life, and I don’t think the government should step in to stop it.”

I ask him what has been the saddest time in his life. “I’ve been very fortunate,” he said. “My wife [Joan; they’ve been together since the Seventies but only married, under pressure from their daughter, Holly, then aged 7, in 1989] says I’ve never really lost anybody close to me.”

That is apart from your first daughter, Clare (who was born three months prematurely and only lived for a few days). “Clearly, yes, that was particularly sad for Joan, but there’s a big difference between losing somebody who’s four days old and someone who’s four years old, and, you know, I am afraid I’ve got to learn to live with losing an adult, which is something I haven’t had to go through… yet.”

Are you thinking of your parents? “Well, they won’t ever die, so… But I’ve always been a bit of a weeper. I wept at Mary Poppins when I was 15. My children bring Kleenex when we go to the cinema, knowing that if it’s a happy story, I’ll cry, and if it’s a sad story, I’ll cry, too.”

I ask him whether his father was also a blubber and he says, “I’ve seen tears in his eyes, on occasion.” Is it true that Ted introduced his teenage son to the joys of sex by taking him off to a prostitute? “He denies it,” Branson says, with a big whoop of laughter.

When we spoke, both Branson’s parents were alive. That evening, the clan was meeting to celebrate Branson’s father’s 93rd birthday. It was striking how much his thoughts came back to his parents; his mother, Eve, is 89 and in terrific health. But, sadly, ten days after our interview, Ted Branson died in his sleep, which makes his son’s comments all the more poignant. It’s still quite unusual for a 60-year-old to have both his parents alive and, perhaps, until you have lost your father or mother, you are still able, however advanced your age, to cling on to that arrested sense of Never Never Land, until the day when you are somebody’s child no more.

I ask him if he’s macho and he says, “Define macho,” before committing himself. “OK, maybe I’m not obviously macho.” Do you have a strong feminine side? “Ask me another question… I can’t think of a good answer to that.”

Lady Branson is his second wife, five years older than him, and she sounds rather wonderful: Glaswegian, unpretentious (she loathes the title, apparently), no-nonsense and unimpressed by her husband’s public image. During Branson’s midlife crisis, he entertained the thought of going to university since he’d missed out on it, but Joan was having none of it: “She’s a great lady and very down to earth and she just put me in my place and told me to get back to work and not go off to university, ‘to chat up those young ladies’, were I think her exact words, and her advice was good advice.”

Do you have an open marriage? “No, we don’t – sadly. Hahahahaha.” I only ask because you did in your first, with Kristen Tomassi. “Well, that was in the late Sixties and those were different days.” But what’s marvellous is that in many ways you haven’t changed. “No, my wife doesn’t mind me flirting, but if I went further than that, I’d definitely get a hell of a smack. So… absolutely not worth it.”

Are you frightened of her? “No, we have a very happy relationship and I’d hate to damage it. We’ve been together 33 or 34 years and it’s quite rare.” What’s your secret? “We don’t restrict each other. We don’t get on top of each other all the time. She lets the rope out slowly and she knows when to say, ‘No.’ She’s got her friends and I’ve got my friends and we don’t smother each other. We’ve also got a lot of very close mutual friends and obviously we’ve got our lovely kids and we’re just a very, very close family.”

Sam is 25 and running an adventure film production company from Duende, the houseboat his parents lived on. He produces the films – a series for Al Gore’s channel, Current TV – but also participates in them. “In the first one he’s done, he had to be under an avalanche and he’s been working out what it’s like to go into these extreme experiences. He’s done three months crossing the Arctic and he’s joined me trying to beat the transatlantic sailing record and both he and Holly love extreme sports.”

Holly, 29, is a doctor but has taken a year’s sabbatical to work with her father. So is there going to be a Branson dynasty?” Well, we’ll have to see. She’s been helping me and just learning the ropes of Virgin but she’s just got engaged and so we’ve got a wedding in December.”

Holly is marrying Freddie Andrews, a shipbroker, on Necker Island (they’ve been going out together for ten years, since they met at school). Guests will have to pay for their flights and bring tents to sleep in. The royal wedding is about to take place when we speak and both Branson’s children – who are friends with the couple – have been invited, but not their father. In his book, he refers to Princess Diana as a friend. How well did he know her? “She used to come on holiday with us to Necker and bring the kids so I knew her pretty well.”

Before I met Branson, I had read his autobiography and found it unexpectedly fascinating. Even the ballooning exploits suddenly made sense, with the beguiling descriptions of the immense sense of calm and hush at that altitude, and how even in the middle of a potentially catastrophic snowstorm, everything is silent. Just as surprising, was how much I found myself liking the protagonist – and even the most deft ghostwriter (I’m assuming this to be Edward Whitley, who is thanked in the dedication) cannot entirely recreate the personality of his subject.

I found it appealing that Branson left in observations by others that were less than flattering, often ones that would give ballast to his critics – such as his cousin Simon’s remark, when Branson chose to pursue his airline rather than shoring up his record company: “You’re a megalomaniac, Richard.” It was also riveting to read about his battles with banks and the difficulties he had, at times, to keep his companies afloat. What interested me was how Branson considered himself: how true had he remained to his rebellious streak? In what ways was he a conventional businessman and to what extent did he feel he was an idealist, a maverick, his own person? “What is the definition of a businessman? I think Lord King maybe defined the old-fashioned viewpoint of a businessman. But, actually, a true entrepreneur is somebody who creates special things that make a difference to people’s lives. The business aspect is simply that, at the end of the year, somebody adds up the numbers and decides whether you can afford the bills. The business aspect is simply making sure that whatever you’ve created continues and I like to think of myself as someone who creates special things rather than being a pure businessman.”

When we move on to space travel, something “special” by anyone’s definition, his blue eyes gleam. “I do pinch myself occasionally but it is ridiculously exciting – you know, being able to say that our space ship is now built, the mother ship is built, the space port is only four months from being finished and the space hotel we’re planning to do in New Mexico will commence soon. Everything is extremely sexy and curvy. The whole thing is a sexy beast.”

The space ship is going to have an eye motif, apparently, using the eye colour of each astronaut – as Branson calls his passengers. The first space ship will have a giant 8ft replica of Branson’s “very blue” eye, which will be emblazoned under the spaceship as its logo. How many have signed up so far? “We’ve got 450 [each paying $200,000, with a ten per cent deposit to secure their seat].” Any celebrities? “Stephen Hawking has paid up.” Any pop stars? “Well, we’re not giving any discounts or upgrades, so I think a lot of celebrities are hoping for freebies…”

What’s your view on freebies? “I’m in the airline business and I do get an awful lot of requests for upgrades. It doesn’t piss me off, because I’m sure I’d be doing the same if I knew somebody who ran an airline – and there are occasions when we’ll break my rules and maybe help someone with an upgrade – but generally we try to avoid it because the airline business is a tough business and you need to actually pay the bills.

“And on space flights, we’re not giving any upgrades because in the space ship there’s only one class.”

He has never donated to any political party, he says. “I think it’s invidious for businesspeople to donate to parties. In fact, I don’t think they should. And I don’t think unions should either because, you know, politicians become the judge and jury if they get into power and if you donate, you’re going to get criticised if they make a decision in your favour, and politicians shouldn’t expect favours from businesspeople. So although there are issues that I feel very strongly about and I’ve spoken out about them over the years, I’ve never got involved in party politics.”

He’s given up the ballooning and is trying to lead the second half of his life building up his not-for-profit businesses, such as his centre for disease control in Africa: “So when I am on my death bed, I want to be able to feel that I’ve made a difference and, you know, as long as I feel satisfied with the life I’ve led, I’ll be happy to die – and every minute of every day of my life has just been a blast. I’ve been a very lucky person and so I don’t think I’m any less happy than I was when I was 20 years old.”

Branson has to move on to his next appointment, but first he must pose for our photographer. This is a good thing, because it gives me a glimpse of the “other Branson”. He is an intriguing man. I like the way he is so close to his family and the choice of his wife and the sense that he has remained loyal to his core beliefs. I am also rather touched by his awkwardness and find it preferable to the big players who trot out their glib certainties. But he is also an odd mixture of Peter Pan (“My parents will never die” and his Adrian Mole-ish “I was 7¾”) and old roué.

I think he feels a bit browbeaten by the conventional interview, actually. So when the very pretty make-up artist appears, apologising for her need to “titivate” him, Branson’s relief is palpable and his whole demeanour changes. “Oh, titivate away!” he says, practically licking his lips, before asking me (jokingly) if I’d mind leaving the room. I can see why Joan has her length of rope.

The Times