Prologue
‘Screw it. Let’s do it.’
Tuesday 7 January 1997, Morocco
5.30a.m.
I WOKE BEFORE JOAN and sat up in bed. From across Marrakech I heard the wavering cry of the muezzins calling people to prayer over the loudspeakers. I still hadn’t written to Holly and Sam, so I tore a page out of my notebook and wrote them a letter in case I didn’t return.
Dear Holly and Sam,
Life can seem rather unreal at times. Alive and well and loving one day. No longer there the next.
As you both know I always had an urge to live life to its full. That meant I was lucky enough to live the life of many people during my 46 years. I loved every minute of it and I especially loved every second of my time with both of you and Mum.
I know that many people thought us foolish for embarking on this latest adventure. I was convinced they were wrong. I felt that everything we had learnt from our Atlantic and Pacific
adventures would mean that we’d have a safe flight. I thought that the risks were acceptable. Obviously I’ve been proved wrong.
However, I regret nothing about my life except not being with Joan to finally help you grow up. By the ages of twelve and fifteen your characters have already developed. We’re both so proud of you. Joan and I couldn’t have had two more delightful kids. You are both kind, considerate, full of life (even witty!). What more could we both want?
Be strong. I know it won’t be easy. But we’ve had a wonderful life together and you’ll never forget all the good times we’ve had.
Live life to its full yourselves. Enjoy every minute of it. Love and look after Mum as if she’s both of us.
I love you,
Dad
I folded the letter into a small square and put it in my pocket. Fully clothed and ready, I lay down beside Joan and hugged her. While I felt wide awake and nervous, she felt warm and sleepy in my arms. Holly and Sam came into our room and cuddled into bed between us. Then Sam slipped off with his cousins to go to the launch site and see the balloon in which I hoped shortly to fly round the world. Joan and Holly stayed with me while I spoke to Martin, the meteorologist. The flight, he said, was definitely on – we had the best weather conditions for five years. I then called Tim Evans, our doctor. He had just been with Rory McCarthy, our third pilot, and had bad news: Rory couldn’t fly. He had mild pneumonia, and if he was in a capsule for three weeks it could get much worse. I immediately called up Rory and commiserated with him.
‘See you in the dining room,’ I said. ‘Let’s have breakfast.’
6.20a.m.
By the time Rory and I met in the hotel dining room, it was deserted. The journalists who had been following the preparations for the launch over the previous 24 hours had already left for the launch site.
Rory and I met and hugged each other. We both cried. As well as becoming a close friend as our third pilot on the balloon flight, Rory and I had been joining forces recently on a number of business deals. Just before we had come out to Morocco, he had bought a share in our new record label, V2, and had invested in Virgin Clothes and Virgin Vie, our new cosmetics company.
‘I can’t believe I’m letting you down,’ Rory said. ‘I’m never ill – never, ever.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I assured him. ‘It happens. We’ve got Alex, who weighs half what you do. We’ll fly far further with him on board.’
‘Seriously, if you don’t come back,’ Rory said, ‘I’ll carry on where you left off.’
‘Well, thanks!’ I said, laughing nervously.
Alex Ritchie was already out at the launch site supervising the mad dash to get the capsule ready with Per Lindstrand, the veteran hot-air balloonist who had introduced me to the sport. Alex was the brilliant engineer who had designed the capsule. Until then, nobody had succeeded in building a system that sustained balloon flights at jet-stream levels. Although it was he who had built both our Atlantic and Pacific capsules, I didn’t know him well, and it was too late to find out much about him now. Despite having no flight training, Alex had bravely made the decision to come with us. If all went well with the flight, we’d have about three weeks to get to know each other. About as intimately as any of us would want.
Unlike my crossings with Per of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans by hot-air balloon, on this trip we would not heat air until we needed to: the balloon had an inner core of helium which would take us up. Per’s plan was to heat the air around that core during the night, which in turn would heat the helium, which would otherwise contract, grow heavy and sink.
Joan, Holly and I held hands and the three of us embraced. It was time to go.
8.30a.m.
We all saw it at the same time. As we drove along the dirt road out to the Moroccan air base, it looked as if a new mosque had sprouted overnight. Above the bending, dusty palm trees, a stunning white orb rose up like a mother-of-pearl dome. It was the balloon. Men on horseback galloped along the side of the road, guns slung over their shoulders, heading for the air base. Everyone was drawn to this huge, gleaming white balloon hanging in the air, tall and slender.
9.15a.m.
The balloon was cordoned off, and round the perimeter railing was an amazing collection of people. The entire complement of the air base stood off to one side in serried ranks, dressed in smart navy-blue uniforms. In front of them was the traditional Moroccan collection of dancing women in white shawls, hollering, wailing and whooping. Then a group of horsemen dressed in Berber costume and brandishing antique muskets galloped into view and lined up in front of the balloon. For an awful moment, I thought they would fire a celebratory salvo and puncture the balloon. Per, Alex and I gathered in the capsule and did a final check of all the systems. The sun was rising rapidly and the helium was beginning to expand.
10.15a.m.
We had done all the checks, and were ready to go. I hugged Joan, Holly and Sam one last time. I was amazed at Joan’s strength. Holly had been by my side for the last four days, and she too appeared to be totally in control of the situation. I thought that Sam was as well, but then he burst into tears and pulled me towards him, refusing to let go. I almost started crying with him. I will never forget the anguished strength of his hug. Then he kissed me, let go and hugged Joan. I ran across to kiss Mum and Dad goodbye. Mum pressed a letter into my hand. ‘Open it after six days,’ she said. I silently hoped we would last that long.
10.50a.m.
There was nothing left to do except climb up the steel steps into the capsule. For a second I hesitated and wondered when and where I would put my feet back on solid ground – or water. There was no time to think ahead. I stepped in through the hatch. Per was by the main controls; I sat by the camera equipment and Alex sat in the seat by the trap door.
11.19a.m.
Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five … Per counted down and I concentrated on working the cameras. My hand kept darting down to check my parachute buckle. I tried not to think about the huge balloon above us, and the six vast fuel tanks strapped round our capsule. Four, three, two, one … and Per threw the lever which fired the bolts which severed the anchor cables and we lifted silently and swiftly into the sky. There was no roar of the burners: our ascent was like that of a child’s party balloon. We just rose up, up and away and then, as we caught the morning breeze, we headed over Marrakech.
The emergency door was still open as we soared up, and we waved down at the, by now, little people. Every detail of Marrakech, its square pink walls, the large town square, the green courtyards and fountains hidden behind high walls, was laid out below us. By 10,000 feet it became cold and the air grew thin. We shut the trap door. From now on we were on our own. We were pressurised, and the pressure would mount.
Our first fax came through the machine just after midday.
‘Oh God!’ Per handed it over. ‘Look at this.’
‘Please be aware that the connectors on the fuel tanks are locked on,’ I read.
This was our first mistake. The connectors should have been locked off so that, if we got into trouble and started falling, we could jettison a one-ton fuel tank by way of ballast.
‘If that’s our only mistake, we’re not doing badly,’ I said, in an attempt to cheer Per up.
‘We need to get down to 5,000 feet and then I’ll climb out and unlock them,’ Alex said. ‘It’s not a problem.’
It was impossible to lose height during the day because the sun was heating the helium. The only immediate solution was to release helium, which, once released, would be impossible to regain. We couldn’t afford to lose any helium. So we agreed to wait for nightfall to bring the balloon down. It was a nagging worry. We didn’t know how this balloon would fly at night, and with our fuel tanks locked on our ability to escape trouble was limited.
Although Alex and I tried to brush off the problem of the locked canisters, it sent Per into a fierce depression. He sat slumped by the controls in a furious silence, speaking only when we asked him a direct question.
We flew serenely for the rest of the day. The views over the Atlas Mountains were exhilarating, their jagged peaks capped with snow gleaming up at us in the glorious sunshine. The capsule was cramped, full of supplies to last us eighteen days. It emerged that failing to lock off the connectors was not the only thing we’d forgotten. We’d also neglected to pack any lavatory paper, so we had to wait
to receive faxes before we could go down the tiny spiral staircase to the loo. And my Moroccan stomach was in need of a lot of faxes. Per maintained his glowering silence, but Alex and I were just grateful that we knew about the canisters then rather than finding out the hard way.
As we approached the Algerian border we had a second shock when the Algerians informed us that we were heading straight for Béchar, their top military base. They told us that we could not fly over it: ‘You are not, repeat not, authorised to enter this area,’ said the fax.
We had no choice.
I spent about two hours on the satellite phone to Mike Kendrick, our flight controller, and tried various British ministers. Eventually André Azoulay, the Moroccan minister who had ironed out all our problems for the launch in Morocco, came to the rescue again. He explained to the Algerians that we could not change our direction and that we did not have powerful cameras on board. They accepted this, and relented.
As the good news came through, I scribbled down notes in my logbook. As I turned over another page, there was a handwritten note from Sam, in thick black ink and Sellotaped to the page: ‘To Dad, I hope you have a great time. Safe journey. Lots and lots of love, your son Sam.’ I recalled that he’d slipped into the capsule without me the previous night, and now I knew why.
By 5p.m. we were still flying at 30,000 feet. Per started firing the burners to heat the air inside the envelope. Although we burnt for an hour, just after 6p.m. the balloon started losing height steadily.
‘Something’s wrong with the theory here,’ Per said.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know.’
Per was firing the burners continuously, but the balloon was still heading down. We lost 1,000 feet, and then another 500 feet. It was getting colder all the time as the sun disappeared. It was clear that the helium was rapidly contracting, becoming a dead weight on top of us.
‘We’ve got to dump ballast,’ Per said. He was frightened. We all were.
We pulled levers to dump the lead weights which were on the bottom of the capsule. These were meant to be held in reserve for about two weeks. They fell away from the capsule and I saw them on my video screen dropping like bombs. I had a horrible feeling that this was just the start of a disaster. The capsule was bigger than the Atlantic and Pacific ones, but it was still a metal box hanging off a giant balloon, at the mercy of the winds and weather.
It was now getting dark. Without the lead weights, we steadied for a while, but then the balloon started falling once more. This time the fall was faster. We dropped 2,000 feet in one minute; 2,000 feet the next. My ears went numb and then popped, and I felt my stomach rising up, pressing against my ribcage. We were at only 15,000 feet. I tried to stay calm, focusing intently on the cameras and the altimeter, rapidly going through the options available. We needed to jettison the fuel tanks. But, as soon as we did so, the trip was over. I bit my lip. We were somewhere over the Atlas Mountains in
darkness, and we were heading for a horrible crash-landing. None of us spoke. I made some rapid calculations.
‘At this rate of fall we’ve got seven minutes,’ I said.
‘OK,’ Per said. ‘Open the hatch. Depressurise.’
We opened the trap door at 12,000 feet, dropping to 11,000 feet, and with a breathtaking rush of freezing air the capsule depressurised. Alex and I started throwing everything overboard: food, water, oil cans, anything that wasn’t built into the capsule. Everything. Even a wodge of dollars. For five minutes, this stalled our fall. There was no question of continuing. We just had to save our lives.
‘It’s not enough,’ I said, seeing the altimeter drop to 9,000 feet. ‘We’re still falling.’
‘OK, I’m going out on the roof,’ Alex said. ‘The fuel tanks have got to go.’
Since Alex practically built the capsule, he knew exactly how to undo the locks. In the panic I realised that, if Rory had been on board instead, we’d have been stuck. We would have had no choice but to parachute. Right now we’d be tumbling out into the night over the Atlas Mountains. The burners roared overhead, casting a fierce orange light over us.
‘Have you parachuted before?’ I shouted at Alex.
‘Never,’ he said.
‘That’s your ripcord,’ I said, pushing his hand to it.
‘It’s 7,000 feet and falling,’ Per called out. ‘6,600 feet now.’
Alex climbed through the hatch, on to the top of the capsule. It was difficult to feel how fast we were dropping. My ears had now blocked. If the locks were frozen and Alex wasn’t able to free the fuel cans, we’d have to jump. We had only a few minutes left. I looked up at the hatch and rehearsed what we would have to do: one hand to the rim, step out, and jump into the darkness. My hand instinctively felt for my parachute. I checked to see that Per was wearing his. Per was watching the altimeter. The numbers were falling fast.
We had only 6,000 feet to play with and it was dark – no, 5,500 feet. If Alex was up there for another minute, we’d have 3,500 feet. I stood with my head through the hatch, paying out the strap and watching Alex as he worked his way round the top of the capsule. It was pitch-dark below us and freezing cold. We couldn’t see the ground. The phone and fax were ringing incessantly. Ground control must have been wondering what the hell we were doing.
‘One’s off,’ Alex shouted through the hatch.
‘3,700 feet,’ Per said.
‘Another one,’ Alex said.
‘3,400 feet.’
‘Another one.’
‘2,900 feet, 2,400.’
It was too late to bale out. By the time we’d jumped, we’d be smashing into the mountains rushing up to meet us.
‘Get back in,’ Per yelled. ‘Now.’
Alex fell back through the hatch.
We braced ourselves. Per threw the lever to disconnect a fuel tank. If this bolt failed, we’d be dead in about sixty seconds. The tank dropped away and the balloon jerked to an abrupt halt. It felt like an elevator hitting the ground. We were flattened into our seats, my head crammed down into my shoulders. Then the balloon began to rise. We watched the altimeter: 2,600, 2,700, 2,800 feet. We were safe. In ten minutes we were up past 3,000 feet and the balloon was heading back into the night sky.
I knelt on the floor beside Alex and hugged him.
‘Thank God you’re with us,’ I said. ‘We’d be dead without you.’
They say that a dying man reviews his life in the final seconds before his death. In my case this was not true. As we hurtled down towards becoming a fireball on the Atlas Mountains and I thought that we were going to die, all I could think of was that, if I escaped with my life, I would never do this again. As we rose up towards safety, Alex told us a story of a rich man who set out to swim the Channel: he went down to the beach, set up his deck chair and a table laid with cucumber sandwiches and strawberries, and then announced that his man would now swim the Channel for him. At that moment, it didn’t sound like such a bad idea.
Throughout that first night, we fought to keep control of the balloon. At one point it started a continuous ascent, rising for no apparent reason. We finally realised that one of the remaining fuel tanks had sprung a leak: we had been unwittingly jettisoning fuel. As dawn approached, we made preparations to land. Below was the Algerian desert, an inhospitable place at the best of times, more so in a country in the middle of a civil war.
The desert was not the yellow sandy sweep of soft dunes which you expect from watching Lawrence of Arabia. The bare earth was red and rocky, as barren as the surface of Mars, the rocks standing upright like vast termites’ nests. Alex and I sat up on the roof of the capsule, marvelling at the dawn as it broke over the desert. We were aware this was a day that we might not have survived to see. The rising sun and the growing warmth of the day seemed infinitely precious. Watching the balloon’s shadow slip across the desert floor, it was hard to believe it was the same contraption that had plummeted towards the Atlas Mountains in the middle of the night.
The still-attached fuel tanks were blocking Per’s view, so Alex talked him in to land. As we neared the ground Alex shouted out:
‘Power line ahead!’
Per shouted back that we were in the middle of the Sahara and there couldn’t possibly be a power line. ‘You must be seeing a mirage,’ he bawled.
Alex insisted that he come up and see for himself: we had managed to find the only power line in the Sahara.
Despite the vast barren desert all around us, within minutes of our landing there were signs of life. A group of Berber tribesmen materialised from the rocks. At first they kept their distance. We were about to offer them some water and the few remaining supplies, when we heard the clattering roar of gunship helicopters. They must have tracked us on their radar. As quickly as they had appeared, the Berber vanished. Two helicopters landed close by, throwing up clouds of dust, and soon we were surrounded by impassive soldiers holding machine guns, apparently unsure where to point them.
‘Allah,’ I said, encouragingly.
For a moment they stood still, but their curiosity got the better of them and they came forward. We showed their officer around the capsule, and he marvelled at the remaining fuel tanks.
As we stood outside the capsule, I wondered what these Algerian soldiers thought of it. I looked back, and saw it for a moment through their eyes. The remaining fuel tanks were painted like vast cans of Virgin Cola and Virgin Energy in bright red and yellow. Among the many slogans on the side of the capsule were ones for Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Direct (now Virgin Money), Virgin Territory and Virgin Cola. It was probably lucky for us that the devoutly Muslim soldiers could not understand the writing round the top of the Virgin Energy can: DESPITE WHAT YOU MAY HAVE HEARD THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE THAT VIRGIN ENERGY IS AN APHRODISIAC.
* * *
As I looked at the capsule standing in the red sand, and relived the harrowing drop towards the Atlas Mountains, I renewed my vow that I would never attempt this again. In perfect contradiction to this, at the back of my mind I also knew that, as soon as I was home and had talked to the other balloonists who were trying to fly round the world, I would agree to have one last go. It’s an irresistible challenge and it’s now buried too deeply inside for me to give up.
The two questions I am most often asked are, Why do you risk your neck ballooning? and, Where is the Virgin Group going? In some ways the sight of the ballooning capsule standing in the middle of the Algerian desert, with its cluster of Virgin names plastered over it, summed up these prime questions.
I knew that I would attempt another balloon flight because it’s one of the few great challenges left. As soon as I’ve banished the terrors of each actual flight, I once again feel confident that we can learn from our mistakes and achieve the next one safely.
The wider question of where the Virgin Group will end up is impossible to answer. Rather than be too academic about it all, which is not the way I think, I have written this book to demonstrate how we made Virgin what it is today. If you read carefully between the lines you will, I hope, understand
what our vision for the Virgin Group is, and you will see where I am going. Some people say that my vision for Virgin breaks all the rules and is too wildly kaleidoscopic; others say that Virgin has become one of the leading brand names of the century; others analyse it down to the last degree and then write academic papers on it. As for me, I just pick up the phone and get on with it. Both the series of balloon flights and the numerous Virgin companies I have set up form a seamless series of challenges which I can date from my childhood.
When I was searching for titles, David Tait, who runs the American side of Virgin Atlantic, suggested that I call it Virgin: The Art of Business Strategy and Competitive Analysis.
‘Not bad,’ I told him, ‘but I’m not sure it’s catchy enough.’
‘Of course,’ he said, ‘the subtitle would be Oh Screw It, Let’s Do It.’
1 ‘A family that would have killed for each other.’
1950–1963
MY CHILDHOOD IS SOMETHING of a blur to me now, but there are several episodes that stand out. I do remember that my parents continually set us challenges. My mother was determined to make us independent. When I was four years old, she stopped the car a few miles from our house and made me find my own way home across the fields. I got hopelessly lost. My youngest sister Vanessa’s earliest memory is being woken up in the dark one January morning because Mum had decided I should cycle to Bournemouth that day. Mum packed some sandwiches and an apple and told me to find some water along the way.
Bournemouth was fifty miles away from our home in Shamley Green, Surrey. I was under twelve, but Mum thought that it would teach me the importance of stamina and a sense of direction. I remember setting off in the dark, and I have a vague recollection of staying the night with a relative. I have no idea how I found their house, or how I got back to Shamley Green the next day, but I do remember finally walking into the kitchen like a conquering hero, feeling tremendously proud of my marathon bike ride and expecting a huge welcome.
‘Well done, Ricky,’ Mum greeted me in the kitchen, where she was chopping onions. ‘Was that fun? Now, could you run along to the vicar’s? He’s got some logs he wants chopping and I told him that you’d be back any minute.’
Our challenges tended to be physical rather than academic, and soon we were setting them for ourselves. I have an early memory of learning how to swim. I was either four or five, and we had been on holiday in Devon with Dad’s sisters, Auntie Joyce and Aunt Wendy, and Wendy’s husband, Uncle Joe. I was particularly fond of Auntie Joyce, and at the beginning of the holiday she had bet me ten shillings that I couldn’t learn to swim by the end of the fortnight. I spent hours in the sea trying to swim against the freezing-cold waves, but by the last day I still couldn’t do it. I just splashed along with one foot hopping on the bottom. I’d lunge forward and crash beneath the waves before spluttering up to the surface trying not to swallow the seawater.
‘Never mind, Ricky,’ Auntie Joyce said. ‘There’s always next year.’
But I was determined not to wait that long. Auntie Joyce had made me a bet, and I doubted that she would remember it the next year. On our last day we got up early, packed the cars and set out on the twelve-hour journey home. The roads were narrow; the cars were slow; and it was a hot day. Everyone wanted to get home. As we drove along I saw a river.
‘Daddy, can you stop the car, please?’ I said.
This river was my last chance: I was sure that I could swim and win Auntie Joyce’s ten shillings.
‘Please stop!’ I shouted.
Dad looked in the rear-view mirror, slowed down and pulled up on the grass verge.
‘What’s the matter?’ Aunt Wendy asked as we all piled out of the car.
‘Ricky’s seen the river down there,’ Mum said. ‘He wants to have a final go at swimming.’
‘Don’t we want to get on and get home?’ Aunt Wendy complained. ‘It’s such a long drive.’
‘Come on, Wendy. Let’s give the lad a chance,’ Auntie Joyce said. ‘After all, it’s my ten shillings.’
I pulled off my clothes and ran down to the riverbank in my underpants. I didn’t dare stop in case anyone changed their mind. By the time I reached the water’s edge I was rather frightened. Out in the middle of the river, the water was flowing fast with a stream of bubbles dancing over the boulders. I found a part of the bank that had been trodden down by some cows, and waded out into the current. The mud squeezed up between my toes. I looked back. Uncle Joe and Aunt Wendy and Auntie Joyce, my parents and sister Lindi stood watching me, the ladies in floral dresses, the men in sports jackets and ties. Dad was lighting his pipe and looking utterly unconcerned; Mum was smiling her usual encouragement.
I braced myself and jumped forward against the current, but I immediately felt myself sinking, my legs slicing uselessly through the water. The current pushed me around, tore at my underpants and dragged me downstream. I couldn’t breathe and I swallowed water. I tried to reach up to the surface, but had nothing to push against. I kicked and writhed around but it was no help.
Then my foot found a stone and I pushed up hard. I came back above the surface and took a deep breath. The breath steadied me, and I relaxed. I had to win that ten shillings.
I kicked slowly, spread my arms, and found myself swimming across the surface. I was still bobbing up and down, but I suddenly felt released: I could swim. I didn’t care that the river was pulling me downstream. I swam triumphantly out into the middle of the current. Above the roar and bubble of the water I heard my family clapping and cheering. As I swam in a lopsided circle and came back to the riverbank some fifty yards below them, I saw Auntie Joyce fish in her huge black handbag for her purse. I crawled up out of the water, brushed through a patch of stinging nettles and ran up the bank. I may have been cold, muddy and stung by the nettles, but I could swim.
‘Here you are, Ricky,’ Auntie Joyce said. ‘Well done.’
I looked at the ten-shilling note in my hand. It was large, brown and crisp. I had never held that amount of money before: it seemed a fortune.
‘All right, everyone,’ Dad said. ‘On we go.’
It was then that I realised he too was dripping wet. He had lost his nerve and dived in after me. He gave me a massive hug.
I cannot remember a moment in my life when I have not felt the love of my family. We were a family that would have killed for each other – and we still are. My parents adored each other, and in my childhood there was barely a cross word between them. Eve, my mother, was always full of life and galvanised us. Ted, my father, was a rather quieter figure who smoked his pipe and enjoyed his
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