The Millionaire Who Can’t Read Or Write

Interview By Laurie Stone, Editor At Large
Photos by Dave Gibbons
Laurie Stone
 
Holiday homes add up to a fortune for entrepreneur who can’t read or write
NUMBERS count for everything in the workaholic world of multi-millionaire Creswell Welch.
The 58-year-old entrepreneur combines an analytical head for figures with an almost photographic memory.
But despite these extremely useful attributes, the wheeler-dealer, who has carved out a £50 million fortune from residential and holiday home parks in England and Scotland, has never learned to read or write.
In his first-ever major interview, Welch takes time out from his seven-day-a-week work schedule to talk to me about his incredible rags-to-riches rise from a traveller family to join Britain's business elite.
 

 
However, only 20 minutes of our tête-à-tête took place in his comfortable office at the 80-acre Seaton Estate in Arbroath, the jewel in his ever-growing Crown Parks empire and an area known throughout the world ...