TV presenter Zoe Salmon says the biggest money mistake she ever made was buying a Grade II-listed apartment in West London. The former Miss Northern Ireland and Blue Peter presenter, 41, told DONNA FERGUSON it cost her £60,000 a year in service charges, plus thousands more in expensive renovations. She is attempting to do hula-hoops … Read more
The best financial decision businessman Gerald Ratner ever made was to start giving after-dinner speeches for a living. Ratner famously lost everything in 1991 when, as chief executive of jewellery chain Ratners, he joked that some of its products were ‘total crap’. The 71-year old told DONNA FERGUSON he now earns a lucrative living giving … Read more
Actor and former Blue Peter presenter Peter Duncan has no pension to rely on in retirement. But he doesn’t feel financially insecure because he is using equity release to access the wealth he has accumulated in his £2.5million South London home. Duncan, 67, who presented the BBC children’s show in the 1980s, told DONNA FERGUSON … Read more
TV presenter Diane Johnson, better known by her stage name Diane Louise Jordan, says the best year of her life was 1990 – the year she got her job on Blue Peter. Jordan, the show’s first black presenter, talked to DONNA FERGUSON about growing up ‘extremely poor’ and how Blue Peter helped transform her finances. … Read more
Prolific: Lady Antonia is still writing aged 88 The most expensive item the author Lady Antonia Fraser has ever bought herself for fun was a heated swimming pool for her lodge in the Scottish Highlands. Fraser, the daughter of an earl and whose second husband was playwright Harold Pinter, told DONNA FERGUSON her biggest money … Read more
Entrepreneur Mo Chaudry would tax online companies and reduce the bill for high street retailers if he were made Chancellor of the Exchequer. Chaudry, 60, who is estimated to be worth around £150 million, spoke to DONNA FERGUSON about what it is like to grow up poor and end up rich beyond your wildest dreams. … Read more
BBC TV presenter Kirsten O’Brien says the past year has been the most financially challenging of her life. O’Brien, 49, who hosted the popular CBBC art programme SMart for a decade, says her top priority is balancing the books after a ‘precarious year’ for freelancers such as herself in the TV and arts industry. She … Read more
Winner: Kay Mellor’s TV hit The Syndicate begins its fourth series on Tuesday Screenwriter Kay Mellor OBE believes NHS frontline workers should be given a ‘big fat pay rise’ when the pandemic is over – and says she is willing to pay higher taxes to help fund it. Mellor is the writer of hit TV … Read more
Olympian Graham Bell was so poor when he was training as a ski racer that he would eat the food other skiers had left behind on tables in restaurants. Along with brother Martin, Bell competed for Great Britain at the Winter Olympics throughout the 1980s and 1990s. But he never made much money and doubled … Read more
It took songwriter Eliot Kennedy just an hour to write 1996 hit song Say You’ll Be There for the Spice Girls – netting him more than £1million. Kennedy, 51, who has just released his first album, also co-wrote several other number one hits in the 1990s such as Celine Dion’s Let’s Talk About Love, When … Read more