Finding My Virginity: The New Autobiography

by Richard Branson

  CHAPTER 29

  Necker

  It had been back in 2005 that Joan and I decided to move to the BVI permanently. By this point in our lives, we had found ourselves on Necker Island more and more. Holly and Sam spent all their holidays with us in the BVI, so although they would continue to work in the UK, we decided to take that step. The kids were very chilled about it, and so were we. Our lives have always been quite nomadic anyway, especially as the Virgin businesses started to become more global, so moving to the place we most loved came naturally to us. The move was so gradual that there was little reaction at Virgin, especially as technology made it increasingly simple to work remotely. Some inaccurate commentators claimed I left Britain for tax reasons. This could not be further from the truth. I spent forty years working around the clock in the UK to build businesses that have transformed industries, created greater competition and choice for consumers and, hopefully, put a smile on people’s faces along the way. These companies have created tens of thousands of jobs, paid hundreds of millions in taxes—and will continue to do so. Whilst I do travel to the UK on business from time to time, I now live in the place that brings most joy to those around me. The BVI is our home; it is where we can live life to the fullest, work hard, play hard, and look forward to spending the rest of our days.

  After the 2011 Necker fire, it took two years of hard work to redesign and rebuild the Great House. Finally, in 2013, our home was our home again, and we were ready to reopen it. We decided to invite the same people who were there when the fire happened, including Mum, Sam, Holly, my nephew Ned and his now wife Kate Winslet, and my nephew Jack, who had raised the alarm that night. As fate would have it, the very evening we returned to the Great House we were welcomed by the biggest, most spectacular lightning storm to hit the island since the fire. As an enormous clap of thunder above the house rang around my ears, I smiled.

  “Well, the gods are welcoming us back!” I shouted over the noise.

  We had fitted the largest lightning rods imaginable to the roof, so we are well protected from future storms. I like to think of the rebuilt Great House as being like the old house, with its breathtaking views and Balinese inspiration, but on steroids. It is the place where people come together on Necker, so making it open, welcoming and unpretentious—but still spectacular—was what we had in mind. My favorite spot on the balcony, where I always go to sit and think upon returning to the island, was recreated exactly as it was before.

  One feature I couldn’t resist adding to the Great House was a crow’s nest on the roof—complete with a Jacuzzi. It’s the perfect place to enjoy the view, gaze at the stars, relax and think things over, perhaps with a glass in hand and a loved one by your side. When it was installed, I joked that there have already been lots of Necker babies—the favorite name for girls conceived here is Annecker—and the Jacuzzi will probably contribute to lots more! As we have so many younger guests visiting—and young-at-heart guests, too—we also added a zip-line for an exciting way to travel from the house to the white sandy beach below. It’s not bad for a morning commute.

  —

  I had originally envisaged Necker as a place for musicians to come, hang out and record. I found the fire-charred remains of the original blueprints for Necker’s very own studios when I was searching through the ruins after the fire on the island in 2012. While the recording studio never came to fruition, the idea of creating a sanctuary for musicians and others certainly did. Everyone from Ronnie Wood to Bono, Kanye West to Mariah Carey—who popped up in my Jacuzzi while I was showing the MTV Cribs film crew around the island—comes to stay.

  Another guest who certainly enjoyed his visit was Harry Styles. The One Direction boys are decent young lads who’d suddenly had the spotlight thrown on them. They were handling it extremely well and so-called scandals like smoking the odd spliff are certainly nothing for parents to worry about. In time-honored tradition, Harry was having a little girl trouble when he came to stay. He was visiting the BVI with Taylor Swift, another extremely talented young performer, when they had a falling out. I invited him over to take a break from everything, and we got talking in the Jacuzzi one night.

  “Remember to have fun among all the chaos,” I advised him.

  “I’m trying to,” he said.

  “And look after yourself, or you’ll burn out by the time you’re twenty-five. When I was working with Boy George, he was in a similar position to you, in demand everywhere he went, and he struggled to deal with it. Make time for yourself, because nobody else will.”

  I came away with the impression of a fun-loving, sensible young man with a smart head on his shoulders and the world at his feet.

  As well as the visits to Necker of assorted stars, my role in the music scene continued to enjoy something of a renaissance. After the success of the Rolling Stones’ comeback, I found myself with plenty more offers for us to get involved with other music legends. In March 2014, we were approached to sponsor a Led Zeppelin reunion tour. I was very surprised that such a tour was a possibility—Robert Plant had made it clear on numerous occasions that he was happy with his solo career and had no wish to re-form the band. However, the promoters claimed the potential was genuine for a fifty-concert tour, with twenty-five stadium shows and twenty-five arena gigs everywhere from New York to Tokyo, Los Angeles to London. They said it would start in August, go through to December and we would have to stump up £15 million to get involved.

  After considering the offer, we politely declined, so I was somewhat surprised to see headlines appear in the newspapers, stating that Robert had turned down a £500 million offer from me and ripped up the contract in front of my face. Apparently Virgin Atlantic was even renaming one of our planes Stairway to Heaven! I called up Robert.

  “Just to let you know,” I told him, “this rubbish isn’t coming from us.”

  “Don’t worry, I never thought it was,” he replied. “I’m proud of Led Zeppelin’s history, but I want to move forward with my own life and solo career. In fact, I’m about to go on tour again.”

  “That’s wonderful. It’s disrespectful to your solo projects for people to keep banging on about the past. Anyway, really look forward to seeing you on tour.”

  It’s great to see so many other artists of my generation still thinking of the future with new ideas and inspiration, whether it is Robert, his old bandmates Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, or my friends Peter Gabriel and Mike Oldfield.

  “I just do things because I love them and I want to do more new things that I love,” Robert had explained. As usual, he had found just the right words.

  Speaking of Mike Oldfield, not long after I saw him onstage at the Olympics, he invited me over to his home in the Bahamas. I luckily timed the visit with another special performance of Tubular Bells. This venue was far removed from the Olympic Stadium, though. It was Mike’s son’s school, and all the kids had learned their parts to give a very sweet rendition of the signature track. It was beautiful, innocent and very powerful—all the qualities I see in Mike.

  Back at his house, we got talking and Mike was more open than I could ever remember him being. He has always been a fiercely private, somewhat introverted individual, but I sometimes manage to draw him out a little. This time, he was doing more talking than I was. He had a stunning new album, Man On The Rocks, coming out on Virgin Records and was clearly on top of the world, surrounded by his loved ones.

  “You seem really well,” I told him. “I can’t remember seeing you look so content.”

  “I am, Richard. I’m happy, the happiest I’ve been in a long time.”

  Mike’s genius was the reason Virgin had got off the ground all those years ago. Now, after many years in the doldrums, I was delighted to welcome Virgin Records back into the family, fittingly in the company’s fortieth year. After some typically complicated and long-winded horse trading between the labels, Virgin moved to Universal HQ and in 2012 joined wi
th Mercury to form Virgin EMI. It was a tumultuous time that ended with Ted Cockle taking over as CEO, joining from Island Records.

  As soon as we met I could see Ted genuinely cared about Virgin Records’ heritage, as well as its future. He recognized that the Virgin name still held a lot of sway and began revitalizing his team behind the brand. They have brought together some of the most exciting new acts around, including James Bay, Bastille and Emeli Sandé, an incredible talent and warm soul I’ve been fortunate to see perform on Necker and get to know. The masterstroke was enticing the biggest international artists, from Rihanna to Katy Perry, Lorde to Taylor Swift, to release their records in the UK through Virgin. Suddenly we were combining home-grown talents like Jamie T and Laura Marling with stadium-shaking superstars. We jumped to the front of the global dance movement, too, as deadmau5, Tiesto and Swedish House Mafia all signed on.

  Within the Universal system, Virgin had become a honeypot and was named the number one singles and albums company in the UK three years running. A Virgin brand I once thought was going to disappear is revitalized, re-energized and rejuvenated. In the past few years, Emeli Sandé has sold more than two million copies of her record Our Version Of Events. But that’s nothing sales-wise compared to twenty years earlier. For some context, in 1993 I convinced Janet Jackson to join Virgin Records by taking her up in a hot-air balloon above Oxford and jokingly saying that I would use her as ballast unless she signed. Her next album, Janet, sold more than fifteen million records worldwide. Although the industry has since gone through a rough time, artists and labels are now beginning to benefit from people paying for streaming subscriptions.

  I would love to have time to listen to more records and go to more concerts, read more books and see more plays. Because I keep so busy, I think there is a cultural hole in my life. I argue to myself that I’ll be able to do lots of the things I don’t have time for when I am old or unwell. I have a cold at the moment, so started watching David Attenborough’s Planet Earth II. I do everything to the extreme, so I devoured the whole series in quick succession. Usually I work on flights, but I recently waded through the whole House of Cards boxset in a matter of days. If I do get into a good nonfiction book, I can’t put it down and can become quite unsociable. Even so, it is a perennial New Year’s resolution to read more and listen to more albums again.

  —

  While she has only dipped her toes into the music world, there are few people more rock ‘n’ roll than Kate Moss. Her weeks on Necker always go with a bang, including when she stayed in 2014 to celebrate her fortieth birthday.

  I have known Kate since she was fifteen, when she walked through an airport and her life changed forever. It was a journey that had started when my sister called me up one day and said that her best friend, Sarah Doukas, had an idea for a company. I agreed to meet Sarah at her home, and she pitched her vision of a new kind of modeling agency run in a more entrepreneurial way. Rather than joining the treadmill of competing agencies, she would focus upon nurturing young talent, managing them all the way through the trials and tribulations of a tough industry and helping them move into other exciting areas after modeling. Sarah was smart, savvy and clearly knew what she was doing. It also helped her cause that I was young enough to be attracted by the concept of owning a modeling agency! I liked Sarah’s attitude and could empathize with somebody running a business out of their home. A former model herself, Sarah told me she used to sell antiques from a market stall on the King’s Road when she wasn’t strutting down the catwalk. I said yes there and then to her pitch and became her partner in Storm.

  After the meeting Sarah flew to Miami to get the business off the ground. It was while walking through the airport that she caught sight of the most striking fifteen-year-old girl she had ever seen, holding hands with her mum. Sarah approached them and asked the mum if she had ever thought about her daughter modeling. The mother, Linda, passed on her details and thought that would be the end of it. But Sarah followed up and the young lady ended up becoming Storm’s first model. Her name? Kate Moss.

  The rest, as they say, is history. Sarah and Storm have gone from strength to strength, helping the likes of Alexa Chung, Lily Cole and Sophie Dahl build careers on and off the red carpet. As for Kate, she became the iconic face of a generation. She’s been good enough to join me for many wing-walks launching Virgin Atlantic routes. When she was hounded by the tabloids after a storm in a teacup scandal in 2005, I suggested we team up once again. With rumors that she was losing all her sponsorship deals, Kate starred in a Virgin Mobile advert where she landed the mother of all contracts. She quickly bounced back to her rightful place as modeling’s top girl.

  Part and parcel of the supermodel territory is having to put up with a lot of press intrusion. I got an insight into Kate’s world when I took a call one Friday morning from the News of the World. The reporter told me they were running a front-page splash that I had a cocaine-fueled threesome with Kate and Keith Richards in the master bedroom on Necker Island.

  “We’ve got this on very good authority,” the journalist assured me.

  My first thought was: what a great story—do I really have to set them straight?! But Jackie McQuillan grabbed the phone as the journalist repeated that they had “got the story straight from the horse’s mouth.”

  “Which horse?” asked Jackie. “Shergar?”

  I took the phone back, laughing. “Well, I’m very flattered,” I joked with them. “But I’m afraid Keith has never visited Necker. Sorry to ruin your splash.”

  Common sense prevailed and they didn’t run the story. I don’t think Joan would have been too pleased if they had. Plus, it wouldn’t have helped Kate’s image—although it might have helped mine and Keith’s!

  When Kate is on Necker she can usually be seen on top of the Great House table, dancing away day and night. I’ve rarely seen anyone work so hard and play even harder. She surrounds herself with friends she trusts, who have been around for a long time, and are very loyal. It’s a model that works for Virgin, too.

  —

  People often ask me what it is really like living on Necker, and I have never been shy about sharing. For the first time, I decided to open up Necker to the BBC for a special documentary, Billionaire’s Paradise: Inside Necker Island. While I try to share what life is like here every day, the program promised to open up more about our staff and guests’ experiences. The crew had complete access to all areas of the island and we had no editorial control.

  The filming happened to take place during one of our “Celebration Weeks,” when guests book individual rooms on the island. It makes for a great mix of people, and a very different atmosphere from the weeks when guests book out almost the whole island, or we just have the family here. Necker is an inimitable destination where our guests, very often highly driven, hard-working people, come to relax and recharge.

  Not surprisingly, certain elements of the press went into overdrive attempting to paint the island as more outrageous than it really is. With typical sensationalism, the Daily Mail even compared me to Hugh Hefner, rather overlooking the fact that I have been happy with the same woman for four decades.

  “Well, you did both get your start in business running magazines,” said Joan.

  “True, but Student was a very different publication from Playboy!”

  Anyway, no harm was done, the island was depicted beautifully and we had a good laugh sitting around the big screen with all our staff watching the documentary. Necker received a huge amount of interest, even more than usual, after the program had aired. Bookings went through the roof, and I’m looking forward to welcoming many more guests to Necker in the years to come. It is the wonderful mixture of guests and staff that ensures my family and I never feel cut off here, rather, feeling a freedom I find nowhere else.

  I also love surprising some of our employees who have really gone the extra mile by flying them to Necker, hosting them for a
few days and saying thank you in person. Some years ago, all of Virgin’s senior management were over for a working break deciding our strategy for the coming year. They were talking about being more adventurous, which I wholeheartedly agreed with.

  “Let’s see you put your money where your mouth is,” I told them. “We’re going on a little boat ride.”

  We sailed over to nearby Moskito, where I took the team for a walk along the cliffs. As we were looking out at the horizon, they slowly grasped what we had come for.

  “Right, here’s the cliff,” I pointed. “It’s time for us all to jump off. Who’s going first?”

  Some looked aghast, staring down at jagged rocks and stormy seas below.

  “My family and I have made the jump many times before,” I reassured them. “Now, if I told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it—literally?”

  Leading from the front, I went first, to show it was relatively safe. One by one, the team started diving off the cliff, in various stages of undress. However, that day I hadn’t taken the strength of the ocean into account. The jumps went fine, but the current was threatening to sweep my entire senior management team away. We frantically called for a rescue boat, while bobbing helplessly in the Caribbean. Thankfully, the boat arrived and we got back to Necker safe and sound. After enduring that experience, the CEOs would perhaps be a little more ready to take calculated risks back at their businesses—after jumping off a cliff, making the odd change in the boardroom won’t seem so scary!

  —

  I fell in love with Necker when I was twenty-nine years old. Now, nearly four decades on, I adore it even more. We have managed to turn it from an uninhabited island into a sustainable, productive place where my family and I will be able to thrive for the rest of our lives. We aren’t getting any younger so looking after our health is a priority. I want to continue my active, creative lifestyle, where I can work, play tennis, kitesurf, swim and relax. I’ve traveled all over the world, from Mallorca to Australia, Tahiti to Bali, Bora Bora to Hawaii, and never found anything remotely as magical as Necker Island.