Sir Alan Sugar Read Online Free PDF Page B

the charms of the Sugar sales pitch when his pupil asked him if he’d lend him the money to buy a printing machine, so he could produce a school magazine. ‘With your cheek, I will,’ replied his headmaster.
    He also had a good grasp of mathematics, as many of those who go on to thrive in business are wont to have. He puts this down to a teacher called Mr Grant, whom he still remembers many decades on. ‘I remember Mr Grant, the maths master, because, even though he gave up on me, I managed to pass my [GCE] O-level,’ said the generous Sugar. ‘He was a real eccentric. We used to call him Theta Grant because he made us laugh when he wrote the Greek letter theta on the blackboard. He was accident-prone. He’d come into school with his face smashed in or a broken arm. There were all sorts of rumours going round, but we never found out the cause of his injuries. When I discovered that the maths O-level syllabus involved something called calculus, which was supposed to be really difficult, I was fascinated. I’ve always enjoyed a challenge. I’m a quick learner and have a photographic memory. Within three or four weeks, Ibecame the whiz kid of calculus, which got me through the exam. Grant couldn’t believe it.’
    His shoe-selling days would be among the final times that Sugar ever worked for someone else. As he said, proudly, ‘I haven’t applied for a job since I was a teenager.’ Although his success and riches have since brought him all manner of luxuries and pleasures, he insists that his original motivation to getting into business was far more down to earth and simple. ‘When I first started out, I wasn’t interested in making a million, I wasn’t thinking about getting a knighthood,’ he said. ‘It was about getting some wheels. I wanted a car – and I wanted to be independent. I was also angry, and probably a bit arrogant. I was sick of putting money in other people’s pockets when I knew I could earn more on my own.’ This anger speaks of an internal frustration with life. Specifically, he feels that it came from seeing how his father had gone about his own working life. ‘I had seen [him] work hard all his life, putting the family first and playing the safe game in order to take care of us.’ Sugar felt that, in a highly important respect, he differed from his father, both in circumstances and makeup. ‘I was at the point when I had no responsibilities – and I knew I didn’t have his temperament – I would never be able to stay the course working for someone else.’
    Therefore, his business ambition has been burning inside Sugar for as long as he can remember. He says healways felt he’d have his own business, and that at heart he has always been a salesman. ‘I never wanted to be a rocket scientist or a football player,’ he adds. He then turns again to the lessons he learned, and the conclusions he drew, from watching his father from a young age. Once more, we can see how he tried to differ from his father, though not to the extent of having anything less than total respect for the man. ‘One of the things that drove me to be self-sufficient was looking at the way my father, a tailor, struggled to keep the family going. I thought, “I don’t want that.” He did a very good job of bringing up a family of four children in very tough times.’
    There were tender moments among the tough times. For Sugar, his bar mitzvah would have been one of them. The words bar mitzvah translate as ‘son on the commandment’ and is the process Jewish boys go through at the age of 13. This is a great event in the life of a Jewish male, where he is called up to read from the Torah scroll. Often, the ceremony will be followed by an elaborate and at times wild celebration. For Sugar it was a more modest affair, which took place at a small synagogue in Upper Clapton Road. Nonetheless, this