"Sir Richard Branson" On The Jonathan Ross Show Series 6 Ep 10.8 March 2014 Part 4/5

[Applause] my next guest is a presently an extraordinary human being he revolutionized the record industry he revolutionized the travel industry and he's appeared in some of the worst TV adverts I've seen in my entire life it's the unique and brilliant Sir Richard Branson I've never entirely sure how long you keep calling someone sir for when when it's ok to start switching to the first second it is it is a protocol that we we should nobody's called me served before so but you can start but your body you are wasn't just a rumor you started about you occasionally walking down the street and you suddenly hear Sir Richard and you think a Shakespearean play taking place somebody so now we're like officially you don't know you're you're kind of a citizen of the world in a way so I think of you but you don't officially live here in the UK anymore do you I spend a lot of time here but I am now living as much as I can on Necker Island ok and I think you know I don't blame me for that this isn't I know this was some people in the papers suggest this but this isn't for tax reasons wasn't it wasn't actually we found it when I was 26 years old it had one one palm tree and so you know a lifetime of creating something very special and yeah now my sixties and it's that it's just a beautiful place we all need we all need a retirement bungalow it's not like you were washed up you're not like Robinson Crusoe what I was doing I was there yeah I was 26 I was trying to persuade a beautiful lady to come and live with me she was in New York and I pretended I wanted to buy an island in the Virgin Islands thinking that maybe the estate agent would lay on a house and a helicopter and that's exactly what they did so I managed to get her down for the weekend and we went the peeper Islands and and we happened to see this island from that from the helicopter and they wanted a fortune for it about five million dollars I felt like it may be scraped together fifty thousand pounds and and that's what I offered and they took the helicopter away they took the house away and we hitchhiked back to the airport but the lady stuck with me she's now the mother of my children and they and the island about a year later nobody else came to see it so and so we ended up ended up getting it and and then I've been back here working very hard for nearly 40 years with the idea of one day we've been you know making it making it at home this is thing I remember reading about this I'm sure you there was you know this dream of yours turned into a bit of a nightmare back in 2011 was it when you had the fire on the island was that caused by it was a lightning strike is that why yeah it was we'd finished building a beautiful home and poor o'clock one morning my son banged on my door and said far at the great house and I looked up there and there were 300 foot flames coming out of it my mum was in it and my daughter nephews nieces and so for a horrible half hour we didn't know whether everybody had got out and unfortunately and everybody everybody everybody was all right Wow well we have a witch's mother Eve is with us this evening a quite extraordinary woman his Eve in the group hello Eve how are you doing Hey I believe a view and Davina you go way back your friends from many years ago destroy yeah we are Mike I lived with my granny and my granny and Eve were very very good friends so even I well she was very very calm and patient with me you were so lovely tonight I had to be sure but I've always been I've always been fascinated with your mother ever since I read your auto book four years ago because the way in which she instilled self-confidence and sort of um I guess just kind of a boldness of spirit new seems to me at the time I read I thought god this woman sounds crazy because when you were four is this true she just dropped you off in a field and told you to make your own way home yeah I suspect I was misbehaving in the car but yeah and she was quite an extreme way and she would be arrested today but the stand on your own two feet you know you can't watch television you got have been doing things and anyway I told her a lesson I got thoroughly lost on the way home and I made made sure that they didn't find me for at least three us while we doing do you think that he might not make it oh god I was so worried I rarely thought oh no I've done it I'm rarely done it I had to make him a strong chap and not leave the car and go over the field but he it worked because a little telephone call came through to me I've got a blue-eyed boy yeah he's lost is he yours Oh God whoa siren I was actually relieved I thought I mustn't be too strict with him but ever since I have been strict but he's he's Richard Branson so why not - got a book coming out or mums the word the high-flying Adventures of Eve when said I think nosey adventures and what a life you've had that's quite incredible I felt the world or to know what I've gone through briefly about your airline before we talked about the space travel because that's the most exciting thing that's happening right now having a when a quote from you which I doubt this true which someone asked you on said how do you become a millionaire and well do you want to finish the quote well you start off as a billionaire and you're going to be airline business I mean I think a virgin airline just being a huge success yeah I mean we we started 30 years ago actually I was trying to get from Puerto Rico to the Virgin Islands one day and an American Airlines bumped us and we didn't have an airline in those days so I went to the back of the airport I had I had Joan waiting for me in the Virgin Islands I was determined to get there that night I borrowed a black board I hired a plane and I wrote Virgin Airlines $29 one way to the british virgin eyes I went around all the passengers had been bumped and I filled my first plane and and then when we got to be the I thought yeah if we could sharpen up the service a bit maybe we could start an airline and when I got back to England I rang up Boeing and said do you have any second and seven four sevenths purcell and they were quite amusing they they and said well you know what you do I say what we happen we have a record company where the Sex Pistols we had the Rolling Stones anyway they said it's you know with a brand name like virgin they're not sure your airline will go the whole way so they didn't wasn't quite sure thing a good idea to sell us the plane that they said they would give us again let's talk about spice let's talk about you going to spice because this is good and I didn't realize that this had been on the agenda for so long oh we found a clip here and I don't mean this has been seen for a very long time but this is a clip from going live they're very popular children's show but from 1988 we're gonna remind I never lost look at this who's that on line three you go hello have you ever thought about going into space wicket I'd love to go into space I think pretty well everybody watching this show would love to go to space I mean the when you see those magnificent pictures of in space and incredible views and I think they've been it could be nothing nice there so if you're building a spacecraft I'd love to come with you on it you never know what what sparks things off in your mind but yeah as a result of that show we registered the name Virgin Galactic Erin we hadn't even thought about you know and and then over the next decade I started traveling around the world meeting technicians engineers to see if anybody you know we could find a genius who could build a spaceship that could take you you and me and you know into space and finally after meeting all sorts of strange and wonderful ideas we came across the man called Bert Rita and he showed us how on re-entry turning the spaceship into a giant shuttlecock and bringing it into the Earth's atmosphere without the dangers of it burning up but we're building spaceships face shapes like aeroplanes so like spaceships but you're not rockets are not ground-based rockets and therefore and you know we can go from sending people into space than to do we can start doing Walt buteau travel rather than suborbital travel so orbital travel will be a lot quicker I guess wouldn't it is that's when we're outside of the confines of gravity and the friction that we have here so you could travel how fast could you get once you're up there how fast could you get from say England to Australia 18,000 miles an hour and so in our lifetime you know I really do believe that we with that we will be able to do this sort of London Australia in a couple of hours Wow okay we have some footage I think I think this is some spaceship 2 and this is some of you've tested it before three times I think you've actually as it left it's left the atmosphere it's gone into what is known a space this one hasn't it will be in the next two or three months wow this is incredible footage it's beautiful look at this [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] I've read I think that these celebrities have confirmed the kind of space we and obviously that's an interesting thing for you because it was attention to it can you confirm or deny these because some of these are just speculated that Ashton Kutcher is going up because he invests I know a lot of cutting instantly Leonardo DiCaprio is going up Wow okay he's Justin Bieber going up he's Justin Bieber coming back we have with are a lot of people have seen putting some money into the pods for a one-way ticket you still must though you still get a kick out the business side of life as well dear do you still enjoy it I'm in another moments of triumph for your have you achieved just about everything do you know I've never ready seen myself as a businessman sounds bizarre I've seen myself as somebody who loves creating things and you know obviously you know the spaceship company is just the most ridiculously exciting thing that I've done in my lifetime if we can if we can get enough people wanting to fly it then we can start building you know virgin hotels in space we can start doing you know trips to the Mars we can start colonizing Mars we can start you know pulling asteroids back to earth to see what minerals they got in them expecting rich advance of the future to appear on the chair next to me we time-traveled guava I'm in disappearance I say who stole this is it's my mum yeah if I want to see my mum you know I'll ring her up and they'll say I'm my mum you know could we get together in six weeks times you'll get her diary out well not six weeks but I can do June the 17th and I was expecting to say next year her diary is so full and she's so busy and I think that's what keeps her young and healthy and fit to run to keep up with us you know what it's great to have you on the show and join me in saying thank you to a very special man so Richard Branson

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Length: 12min 51sec (771 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 08 2014