|
The man behind the wheel set out on the long and winding road to
success aged 18 sailing for the United States, just ahead of the
Beatles in 1964. “After the drabness of post-war Britain the US was
a burst of colour and excitement. A vast, amazing country but very
insular. First job I got was on a ranch in California. The locals,
when I said I was from England, thought I meant New England. Only
10% of US citizens have passports.”
A far cry from the US west coast, John Madejski lives in a
clean-lined house tucked away behind trees and rolling meadows in
his native Berkshire. Staff greet you and offer coffee. There’s a
busy hum in the rooms and the kitchen. Madejski however is a quiet
man. Clearly at peace with a world he has crossed as a penniless
school leaver and a leading Berkshire businessman.
In America he discovered a work-hard play-hard society. “The guys
all seemed to have these Captain Sensible crew-cut hairstyles. We
really stood out with slightly longer hair. I think after I left the
flower power, the Haight-Asbury thing started. It was a terrific
explosion – you could see it had been waiting to happen. They had
been so insensitive, hard working and straight and now in California
there was this collective throwing off of the shackles and
questioning of all these values. I knew people who were very, very
conservative that suddenly grew their hair long.” Tempted to join
the summer of love? Definitely not. “No, it was not my scene. I
always had my feet firmly on the ground.”
John Madejski took two lessons and an idea from America. The lessons
were energy – use lots of it – and secondly, the central ethos of
American immigrant legend: that you can go anywhere and do anything.
The idea came later.
John Madejski progressed from roping long horns in the California
high sierras to selling cars south of the Mason-Dixon line – “I sold
anything including Rolls Royces, Aston Martins, Austin Healeys and
Triumphs. They liked the accent and I liked it even better when
they’d say, yes, I’ll have me one of them.” Selling underpinned
John’s early skills. “I was into all sorts of things. I would come
up with an idea a week. Eventually I ended up on the Reading Evening
Post selling classified advertising. It was all great experience.”
Then a few years later came the idea that would take him right to
the top.
“I was in Florida staying with a girl called Jane Barrington. She
showed me this magazine advertising cars for sale using photographs.
They weren’t very good quality but I remembered as I read the
magazine that someone said a picture paints a thousand words. I
thought to myself looking out over the Florida Keys, I may not know
much about cars or the difference between a Buick and a Chevrolet
but a picture tells you everything.’
John set up Thames Valley Trader. “Originally we sold all sorts of
things, antiques, houses, art, aeroplanes but cars quickly became
the one to go for.” The business grew phenomenally and the magazine
eventually changed its name to “Auto Trader.” It changed John
Madejski’s life and he sold out. His reputed 260 million places him
among the top two hundred richest people in Britain.
John Madejski seems little changed, sipping a cup of tea and joking
with the photographer as we line up the Bentleys for a picture. The
house sports a swimming pool and a gymnasium. He works out every day
alternating between pool and gym. “I need to do it and try and get
it out of the way as soon as I can in the morning. I work out
because it makes sense, I socialise a great deal and this helps the
balance.” Is that his motivation? Redressing the balance?
“I am driven by a desire not to fail,” he admits. Yet the Reading FC
involvement is part of a deeper desire to make money work and
generate more energy, more wealth, not just for the investor but for
the people and places caught up in the dynamo. This example will
remain John Madejski’s unique achievement.
John Madejski’s interests range from a new venture, Malaysia Motor
Trader to an idyllic riverside restaurant in Goring, the Leatherene
Bottel, run by Annie Bonnet. “I keep it for posterity, I just enjoy
it,” says John talking of summer evenings by the river and the sound
of laughter drifting across the water. Piped with honeysuckle and
vines it remains quintessentially English while serving food and
wine that made it a restaurant of international repute. At the other
end of the scale is the massive, futuristic Madejski Stadium new
home to Reading FC and the site of conference centre, hotel and
award wining restaurant, Cilantro. The hotel is large, light and
airy, a generous spirited place, with room to grow, underpinning
Reading’s inspired attempts on the First Division. “The new stadium
and the club is important for the local community. When we win, we
give everyone a boost.”
Overseas John Madejski helped an Italian doctor, Furio Valbonesi,
open up the first luxury hotel on the Galapagos islands. Tastefully
constructed the hotel house 40 guests and is staffed by local
islanders under a Swiss major-domo. “Furio and I knew each other
years ago in London. We’d go out and have fun, he used to come over
to buy cars,” says John. “We always kept up. He had this dream of
opening a hotel in the Galapagos islands which we have both visited.
Furio bought 500 acres of Santa Cruz highlands a few years back.
Getting planning permission was a headache; getting a backer even
more so.” John stepped in funding the building of the Royal Palm.
Putting money to work in a responsible way is central to John
Madejski’s philosophy. Ever keen on oil painting he recently helped
out the Royal Academy with a new gallery. “I feel very strongly that
the man in the street should be able to see works of art. The Royal
Academy didn’t have access to some important pictures because of
where they might be hung. So I put money into doing up the gallery.”
Going further he has also set up the John Madejski gallery in
Reading and a similar project in the Galapagos.
Culture is central to John Madejski’s baccalaureate take on life
from cars and football to art and wine. Education of a sort but
hardly the stuff of national curricula. “Well, I found school
difficult and was really not very academic.” Education largely fails
the loner, the maverick. “Look at a group of school students and you
see just a group. But I believe everybody in that class room brings
something to the party. I believe education is too tightly focused.
Teachers tend to identify with the like minded. This means the free
thinkers, the mavericks, the Herberts like me, are immediately at
odds with the system. It has to change but I do believe education is
a suitable case for treatment.” John Madejski sees life as a
continuing engagement with the art of learning. A certain bulldog
determination drives this devotion. Sipping coffee the photographer
cheerily praises the spacious dimensions of the living room. “Ah
yes, the painting,” says John. “On The Breath of Morning: The Golden
Fleece by Montague Dawson, I tracked it down and bought it to hang
at home. It needs plenty of perspective 35 feet or so.” Ably
assisted by his daughter, the solution was to put together three
rooms. You knocked through three ground floor rooms for a picture?
“Yes,” says Madejski smiling impishly, “But it works doesn’t it?”
Historically the Golden Fleece may have been what Jason needed to
become king. Three thousand years later John Madejski is taking a
less whimsical look at the business of wealth. Madejski is
interested in the mechanics of wealth and people’s understanding of
it. The British have an ambivalent attitude to wealth. Win the
lottery, sure, but sneer at money. Intrigued by this John Madejski
has invested in the Henley Management College, where he sits on the
board of governance, endowing a Chair of Reputation. “I wanted
intelligent, intellectual research into the business of making money
by fair means or foul. I believe people who make money are in the
main very hard working. It’s not an easy thing to do. I’m trying to
prove that intellectually. The aristocracy never talked of money
because they’d usually got it by foul means.” The upper classes may
have inherited their wealth but now all that is changing. “As a
nation the United States celebrates wealth creation. I think we
should, too. Entrepreneurs are the power house of society and really
I want people to understand that and get out and do it because it’s
great for the country. You have to be determined. Stick at it. It’s
important to encourage people, to make them feel they can make it.
Advice? Yeah, determine what you’re good at and go for it hell for
leather. My main skills are simply this: enthusiasm and
determination to get it right. Forget envy, envy is negative. I know
it’s hard to break through. I tried all sorts of daft ideas before I
cracked it. Even now I still feel I have to run faster.”
Fans of Reading FC will remember his munificence. Wiser men will
value his advice and encouragement as they motor the long and
winding road to success – preferably in a Bentley convertible. |
