Power Through: Going to prison changed one man's life. It helped him become a multi-millionaire

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brave james

My earliest memory is from when I was five, and my dad took me in his blue Vauxhall Cavalier to see Leicester City play Manchester United. I don't recall anything about the game, apart from the deafening noise and the huge, tightly packed crowd, but I do remember that Gary Lineker was playing for Leicester. And, no doubt, he scored.

I was born at Leicester Royal Infirmary on 11 September 1976. My mother was just twenty-one. She named me James because she had liked the name after watching David Essex play a character called Jim in the film That'll Be the Day. She remembers a nurse opening the windows because it was so hot, so one of the first sounds I probably heard was the chants of Leicester City supporters at Filbert Street.

My dad grew up in Leicester. His father, who had served in the army, moved there from Yorkshire. My dad had two brothers and a sister who had Down Syndrome; she died at the age of thirty.

My mum was born in Market Harborough. Her parents split up when she was young, and her dad moved to Cornwall. When she was thirteen her mum died, so she ended up living with her granny.

My parents met in 1971 at the Palais de Danse in Leicester. After getting married in 1974, they rented a flat in the city before buying a house in Logan Street in Market Harborough. In 1977 they moved less than a mile away to a house on Lubenham Hill.

Market Harborough is a small town about fifteen miles south of Leicester and close to the Northamptonshire border. Locals just call it Harborough. Its most notable features are St Dionysius Church with its tall spire: a seventeenth-century timber-framed building on wooden pillars that was once the grammar school; and the red-brick Symington factory, which made corsets for retailers such as Marks and Spencer. When my parents moved there, it contained the kind of independent shops you found in many small towns, along with a Woolworths, Boots and Burton's. Champers Café in the Square was a popular place to grab something to eat or have a cup of tea, and my mum often met her friends there. To the north of the town was the basin of the Leicester Line of the Grand Union Canal, lined by a number of old warehouses. If you ever bought a packet of Golden Wonder crisps, you would know from the back of the packet that the company's head office was in Market Harborough, on Abbey Street.

When I was seven, we moved to a three-bedroom house in Cromwell Crescent, on the south side of the River Welland. By now I had a younger brother called Tom and a sister, Debbie. I shared a bedroom with Tom, and we had lots of fights, as brothers are prone to do, but overall we got on pretty well and played football together most days. Apparently my first words were 'outside' and 'football'.

I went to Fairfield Road Primary School for a year and then to Farndon Fields Primary School. I don't remember much about my primary school days, but when I was six, I saw a boy called Paul attack one of the teachers, Mrs White, in class one day. Since that memory sticks out, it must have left a lasting impression.

My mum's dad lived in St Ives in Cornwall. When I was seven and Tom was five, my parents took us to Victoria Coach Station in London and put us on a National Express coach to Cornwall. In those days, a hostess was provided for unaccompanied children. The coach travelled through the night and we were met by my grandad at Penzance, where he was a traffic warden and his wife helped run an ice-cream shop near the pier. One day Tom and I went to the end of the pier and watched some older lads jumping off it into the water, so we did the same. When my grandad discovered what had happened, he wasn't happy. I think we were a bit of a handful for him. When he took us to a Radio 1 road show, we got lost in the crowds. After he found us, he gave us both a smack for getting lost. We never stayed with him again.

Another summer, my parents took us to stay in a caravan in Dorset. I recall that Tom and I clambered up Durdle Door, a natural limestone arch in the sea near Lulworth, unaware of how dangerous this was. We had no fear.

Usually when we went on holiday, though, it was to Butlin's in Minehead or to stay with Mum's family in Devon or Cornwall - but we had plenty of days out to places like Skegness or Hunstanton too. My mum and dad would pack the car and then watch the weather to decide where to go. My dad liked cycling. On one occasion, he set off for Skegness at 5am, and we caught up with him later in the car and picked him up. When I think back to those summer holidays, I just remember eating fish and chips and sheltering under an umbrella from the pouring rain.

My mum and dad promised to buy me a dog when I was eight if I did better at school, especially with my handwriting. I really wanted a dog, so I began to pay more attention to the teachers and try harder. My parents kept their promise and bought me a springer spaniel, which I called Twinkle because of the way the stars twinkled in the sky.

My favourite TV programme when I was small was The Muppets. I always got very excited when it came on, and I even had an album with all the songs from the show.

I don't recall much else about my early years, yet beyond sleepy Market Harborough significant events were taking place. Margaret Thatcher became prime minister, Britain went to war with Argentina to reclaim the Falkland Islands, the Troubles in Northern Ireland were at their peak, there was a national miners' strike to try to prevent the closure of the collieries and, internationally, the USA and the Soviet Union were locked in the Cold War. As a child, of course, these sorts of things don't make much sense to you; they are all part of the adult world.

My dad worked for several years at Tungstone, the battery maker, one of the largest employers in the town. It had two sites: a factory in Lathkill Street, off Northampton Road, and a warehouse near the railway station. He had also been a milkman with Kirby & West. When I was about ten, he would take me out on the float with him. One morning, he asked me if I wanted to have a go at driving it. 'Yes!' I shrieked. I got behind the wheel, carefully pressed the pedal and set off down the street, only to crash the float into the railings in front of Robert Smyth School. My dad jumped out. 'Quick!' he said. 'Help me fix these before anyone sees us.' We managed to push the railings back together, then drove away.

My mum had various jobs when I was growing up, such as working as a barmaid in the Peacock pub in St Mary's Place and as a secretary in a solicitor's office.

We would have fish and chips on Thursdays, because that was when my dad got paid, and a roast on Sundays. We weren't a poor family, but money was tight. I remember eating jam sandwiches a lot. My mum and dad didn't go out that much. They just worked hard to look after three kids and two dogs.

Apart from my dad, we all had a problem with our weight. Back then we weren't aware of 'the calories in, calories out' formula with which most people are familiar nowadays. We ate far too much because we all liked large plates of food. I'd go into town and have a cob and a cake from Wesses Bakery and think nothing of it. I wouldn't dream of having a cake at lunchtime now. When I look at photos of myself in the football team back then, I'm always the biggest. Needless to say, some of the kids at primary school ribbed me about my weight.

At one point, my mum, who was only five foot seven, went up to eighteen stone. She eventually joined Weight Care, which is similar to Weight Watchers, and came second in Slimmer of the Year, losing eight stone. Later, in the late eighties, she trained to be an instructor and ran her own aerobics and slimming classes in a church hall. Long before that, she began to weigh us all each week on the bathroom scales, and she'd get upset if we'd put weight on. I started losing weight around the age of thirteen. I don't know why it happened. Maybe it was because I got taller. I know it wasn't because I went on a diet; that would never have occurred to me. Whatever the reason, I'm pleased to say I've managed to keep it off ever since.

Christmas was always an exciting time. My mum would leave a mince pie and a glass of sherry for Santa on Christmas Eve. I'd wake up early, go downstairs and see all the presents under the tree. My mum would cook a great Christmas dinner, and we would usually go to my grandma's in Leicester on Boxing Day. Sometimes my dad would take me to see Leicester play.

I remember my mum saying to me one year, 'Santa doesn't exist, James.' I then told Tom and Debbie what she'd said, even though Mum asked me to keep it a secret. They never let on for ages that they knew. One Christmas, my parents bought a half-size snooker table for me and Tom. We spent hours playing on it in the dining room. My dad sometimes took us to play snooker at two social clubs, known as the 'top club' and the 'bottom club'.

Market Harborough didn't have a cinema. If we went to see a film it would be at the ABC or the Odeon in Leicester. The first films I remember seeing were ET, Rocky IV and the Star Wars trilogy. My grandparents on my dad's side lived in Leicester, and we'd often go to visit them on a Saturday. A big treat was to go to Grimsby Fisheries on Welford Road for fish and chips; the portions were huge.

After leaving primary school, I went to Welland Park College secondary school until I was fourteen and then to Robert Smyth School, which had previously been known...