John Caudwell is a multi-billionaire businessman who today revealed how his fear was that Lyme Disease would lead to his death.
In an emotionally charged edition of Desert Island Discs, the Phones 4u founder fights back tears as he describes the impact of his son Rufus’s diagnosis in 2014.
This infection may cause severe headaches, heart palpitations and other debilitating symptoms.
‘I was devastated because my brilliant son, who was the most confident person you’ve ever met, turned into this anxious wreck,’ says the father-of-six.
He adds: ‘Here I am now with my own son, a brilliant young man with an amazing life ahead of him who is struck down and I was completely powerless to help.
‘There were many, many, many times when we thought we’d lost him. To prevent him from trying to take his own life, we had to keep an eye on him 24/7.
‘He’s many times since said the only thing that kept him alive was because we were fighting so hard for him and loved him so much.
‘He is doing brilliantly now… It’s never ever too late. You can come back from the most horrendous situation in life.’
In an emotionally charged edition of Desert Island Discs, Phones 4u founder John Caudwell fights back tears as he describes the impact of his son Rufus’s diagnosis in 2014
Rufus, now 26, is now Mr. Caudwell (69), also recalls his troubled youth, and the time when his father was very offended by his Beatles haircut.
‘I grew this Beatles cut and my dad eventually said when he realised what it was, “We are not having the Beatles anywhere near this house”, and lopped it all off with his shears and my hair actually never grew back properly after that,’ he says.
‘So it was also the end of my hair-growing days and the end of my Beatles days and a sort of example again where my father just overreacted really.’
Mr Caudwell suggests that his difficult relations with his father may have been linked to his wartime experiences, saying: ‘Unfortunately, I didn’t really from him get the love or the fairness that I would have really liked.
‘In the very early years when I was five or six, I used to wet the bed and he’d be very, very angry about me doing that and I think looking back he probably had PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] because he treated me quite badly.’
After Modesta Vzesniauskaite gave birth last year to William, Mr. Caudwell, his 38-year-old partner, became a father once more.
Last year, Mr. Caudwell was again a father when Modesta Vzesniauskaite (pictured in May 2021 together), 38, a former Olympic cycling cyclist from Lithuania gave birth to her son William
Birmingham-born entrepreneur. He reportedly paid for himself once in fine wines and gold bars to reduce his National Insurance payments.
‘At the time I was scratching my way forward, this is not sort of an excuse it’s a reality… Every pound that I could save, I could reinvest in the business,’ he says.
‘So, paying as little tax as we possibly could was really important. However, I believe all these tax tricks, even if they were legal, should be stopped.
“Would you do it again?” No, I absolutely wouldn’t, but I know why I did it at the time.’
- Desert Island Discs will air on BBC Radio 4 at 11am today and again on Friday, September 9th at 9am