The Billionaire and the Bankrupt
Part 1 What bound them together
In 1990, at the age of 50, a five times Wimbledon champion, Ken Fletcher, found himself a divorced father of two – and a bankrupt.
His dream of owning his own Tennis Ranch in Spain had led him to this.
To pay off the bankruptcy, Fletch took the only job going – coaching housewives tennis in the English industrial town of Slough.
The Brisbane boy whom friends had once christened “The Big Lah-di” now described himself as “The Big Flop”.
That year he wrote me a letter on Qantas Inflight notepaper “somewhere between Brisbane and Singapore”.
“Hopefully I never kid myself of what my role in life is,” he wrote. “I always thought one day I would be a ‘great man’; not on money, but being able to help the ‘not so fortunate’. But once again it seems I’m a dreamer.”
There seemed no way out of his dire situation, let alone of achieving his dream of helping people.
Then one day, Ken’s Pakistani mate Farid Khan telephoned from the opal fields in Australia with some news: their mutual friend from Hong Kong days in the 1960s – Irish-American Chuck Feeney – was now living in London.
What’s more, Chuck had since become a multi-billionaire with hundreds of Duty Free Stores around the globe – now the world’s largest duty-free chain.
Forbes Magazine had only recently discovered Chuck’s wealth … and he entered their rich list as the 23rd wealthiest American.
The Aussie and the Yank had been mates in a foreign land two decades before, but since that time their circumstances could not have become more different.
The London Sunday Times had recently listed Chuck as one of the 10 richest people in the UK.
And here was Kenny Fletcher one of the poorest – living behind the dog-track in the Slough of Despond.
Chuck Feeney and Fletch had first bumped into each other in 1967 at the Ladies Recreation Club in Hong Kong, when Chuck was 36 and Ken 27.
Chuck and his wife were social tennis players at the club, but only joined because “being a women’s club it didn’t have the usual long waiting list”. Plus Chuck and his wife could bring along their tribe of kids.
Chuck told me he liked it because “it was a meat and potatoes kind of club”. I’d never heard that phrase before but assumed it meant nobody there stood on ceremony.
Fletch and Chuck soon found they shared an Irish-Catholic heritage; the love of a drink; and schoolboy jokes.
They would laugh together until they were both shaking.
Chuck told Ken the one about the two mates who went off to Confession together. Both had been “playing up” (to use a 1950s term) with the same girl … so they agreed not to mention her name to the priest.
The first bloke goes in.
What was her name? asks the priest.
I’m afraid I can’t say, says the youth.
Was it that wicked Mary MacBride? No.
Was it that naughty hussy Sonja O’Sullivan? No.
Well it must have been that wayward lass Colleen Locke? No.
When he got out his mate asked: Did you tell her name?
No, I didn’t … but I got some good leads.
Chuck and Ken had even more in common than they at first realised.
Ken Fletcher – famous playboy and Wimbledon champion – was helping the Jesuits with their Hong Kong orphans.
He would take four or five on outings, and every year took a group of orphans for Christmas Dinner at the Grand Hotel.
At the same time, Chuck Feeney – educated by the Jesuits in New York – was financially supporting the Catholic nuns who were looking after kids in Hong Kong’s impoverished New Territories.
Chuck told me the two would occasionally talk about their hopes for the children, and about the Jesuits … whom Ken always referred to as “the Rolls-Royce of priests”.
Ken was sponsoring the education of three local orphan girls from the Kennedy orphanage of the Sisters of St Paul: I suppose he was looking for sorrows greater than his own.
His utmost criticism was to say someone “has no heart”.
A local paper printed a photo of Ken with Clare, seven, who was found on a rubbish dump, and Joanna, seven, who was left on a doorstep, with her sister Margaret, eight.
Clare was blind.
Ken took her to doctors, but said: “The position is hopeless. She’s learning Braille, but, and is doing extremely well.”
The paper said the orphans called him “Uncle Ken”.
Chuck was living in Hong Kong because he and his business partner had opened their first Duty Free Store there.
“The store became a kind of gathering place for people,” Chuck told me. “Ken and Farid would come there. At the end of a day we would all loosen up. Ken was invited along because he had a congenial aura about him. He was what you would call likeable.
“Across the road was a French restaurant called Trou Normande, which I think meant wash down the food with booze! So Ken and I would go there for lunch and we would also go for a drink there together.
“We became two joke-telling amigos.”
This went on until 1972 when Chuck and his young family moved to France and the two amigos lost contact while Ken continued to win Wimbledon titles.
With this background – as a close friend from the days before Chuck was a multi-billionaire – a down-and-out Fletch told the housewives at the Slough Tennis Centre to hit amongst themselves while he caught the train into Waterloo Station to track down his old mate.
When the pair met for dinner, Chuck was shocked at the way Ken’s life had gone downhill since they had known each other as optimistic young men starting out with big dreams.
Ken, as if in a Confessional, said: “I’m an old has-been, Chuck, I’m at the end of my tether.”
Chuck comforted his old friend saying: “Ken, Kenny … the greats are remembered for what they were, not for what they are! … You know, Ken, the difference between a billionaire and a bankrupt is about a day.”
Years later Chuck told me about that reunion: “Ken was bordering on catastrophe. He was 50; he was alone; he owed money; and here he was a five times Wimbledon champion coaching housewives!
“We were going to have some tennis weeks at our Island Clubs in the Pacific, so Ken came on board.”
Actually, it was much, much more than “coming on board”.
It was even much, much more than throwing Fletch a lifeline.
It was a move that was to completely change the trajectory of a man’s whole life ... and, miraculously, that of his hometown as well.
Not only did Chuck Feeney employ Ken, but his resort company bought him a six-bedroom house at 37 Beaulieu Close, in the beautiful English village of Datchet, near Windsor Castle.
Ken Fletcher was a Big Lah-di once more.
[Part 2 Helping One Another Part 3 The Odd Couple]
You've read a lot of my Telling Stories in a hurry Peter! Some people join up and then read each new one -- but never go back and have a look at the other 58 short stories on my site!
Glas you've been moved to comment on half a dozen of them at once.
Hugh
YOU'RE THE SECOND PERSON TO SAY EXACTLY THAT today Cackles. So I'm glad readers are enjoying the three-part series based on my book The Great Fletch: with new info.
The second part went up this morning -- and the Third will go up in a few days, when readers have had time to absorb the first two!
Thank You.