John Caudwell

When my back's to the wall, I want to fight.

My favourite thing is to come down to London from my home in Staffordshire in the helicopter and then get my bike out of the back and cycle into London. It's wonderful.

I do want to keep the Wedgewood Collection in place, intact, and open to the public. Selling it off would be a real tragedy.

My philosophy is very much to encourage my children to forge their own success and happiness, even though that will undoubtedly involve much more modest levels of wealth creation.

Taxes aren't the way to go. They'd strangle the economy; you wouldn't create the wealth. And nothing squanders money as well as a government. What we need is to encourage rich people to give.

Those of us who have yet to find philanthropy may find there is a far greater reward from it than from wealth creation.

I'm known for value for money. I was brought up to be frugal, and it's definitely a factor in my success. I was born in the Fifties, which was a frugal era, and my family had to be very careful with money out of necessity.

OK, I've made a preposterous amount of money. But I was born with the attributes needed to do it.

I was only 21 when I bought a five-bedroom detached house in Stoke-on-Trent that was way outside of my financial status in life. I did it by borrowing money from my family and the bank, taking out a huge mortgage.

If you throw money around like confetti, it just becomes shallow and meaningless.

I'm a wealth creator. I'm not interested in saving in the least. While I do spend a lot, I don't spend money like other billionaires. I'm probably quite unusual, albeit I do have some of the significant trappings. But I always try to make my assets work for a living.

I'm in the lucky position that I can help a huge amount of people. It's a great privilege and freedom to have.