Island Life Magazine Ltd August/September 2008 | Page 38

life INTERVIEW

Behind every great man...
The Round the Island Race brought a visitor long associated
with the Island. Roz Whistance meets the amazing mother
of a remarkable son.

By Roz Whistance
Eve Branson smiles her
brilliant smile when I tell
her I’ve been nervous about
meeting her, and the more so
when I tell her why. I have
read that when her son was
just four years old she put him
out of the car several miles
from home to find his own way
back. “Well I didn’t want him
growing up all namby-pamby,”
she smiles.
On his website, Richard
Branson says he learnt from
his mother never to look back
at anything you’ve done with
regret. Eve clearly has no
cause to regret her formidable
method of child rearing.
Eve and Ted Branson are
here for the Round the Island
race. Ted is a huge gentle bear
with the maverick longish hair
that you associate with their
son. She is tiny and bird-like,
still with the beauty that fine
bone-structure and good skin
bequeath, and with the poise
and elegance of a dancer:
she used to be with the Ballet
Rambert. Thanks to Eve’s
seemingly boundless energy,
even at 86, she and their
Island-based friends, Anthony
and Linda Churchill, are in
for a strenuous weekend, up at
5.45 for the Cowes Squadron
start, the National Trust’s
Needles viewpoint, Blackgang,
The Rex at Ventnor, then

38

partying at the Royal London
Yacht Club until past
midnight. A walk is planned
for the Sunday: then on the
Monday she is flying off to
Morocco to do the job her son
has given her.
“ I’ve accepted it as normal,
having someone extraordinary
as a son,” says Eve.
Teenage publishing
entrepreneur who founded
Virgin Records, the first of
the ubiquitous Virgin group
businesses, Richard’s sideways
approach to business – who
can forget TV footage of
bearded man in roll-neck
jumper surrounded by all
the Suits – coupled with his
passion for extreme sports and
challenges set him apart from
most of humanity. Not least
because in everything he does,
he manages not to be vilified:
the public like him.
This is exactly as Eve
intended it. She brought
Richard and his two sisters up
to “perform” – entertain, put
people at their ease – for house
guests. “Naturally they didn’t
want to, but they had to give
pleasure to other people,” she
says. “They weren’t allowed to
be shy – that meant they were
thinking of themselves. They
had to be outward bound, not
inward looking.” She adds,
smiling: “That’s worked with

Richard. Whenever he comes
into a room now, people enjoy
his company.”
Eve’s association with the
Isle of Wight goes back to the
war, when, as a young WREN
she spent a year in Yarmouth.
Eve’s job was to signal with
Aldis lamps from the end of
Yarmouth pier. “One night
there were an amazing amount
of boats going past, and we
suddenly realized it must be
the invasion. We watched them
all go out, and some, not all,
limp back.”
“I had a wonderful year on
the Isle of Wight. Servicemen
arrived daily: it was a
captive audience for a young
girl!” She loved wearing
the bell-bottomed trousers
which were “saucy”. “We
didn’t do too badly!” she says,
enigmatically.
Her first thought when war
ended was “how can I see
the world now?” The airline
industry was in its infancy,
and she wangled herself an
interview for a job as an air
hostess, a glamorous and
exotic profession. She smiles
wickedly: “Can you speak
foreign languages?’, they said.
‘Oh yes!’ I said. ‘And do you
have nursing experience?’ ‘Oh
yes,’ I said. Of course neither
was true!”
It was not the first time Eve

danced into a new and exciting
world. At the start of the war,
too young to join the Forces,
she applied to the local airfield
to learn to fly gliders, and to
teach gliding to young boys.
But to get the job she had to
pretend to be a boy. “I think
the teachers guessed,” she
laughs. “It was a little difficult
sometimes on cold days in the
middle of the field when you
needed to spend a penny.”
Her job as air hostess p roved
a little too exciting for future
husband Ted. The crash
rate of the aircraft was not
inconsiderable. “He said I’d
better marry you so you can
get out of this dangerous life,
with planes crashing around
you.”
Not that marriage meant
she stopped working. “No,
we started Richard on
honeymoon, and there was no
money in the kitty at all.” Ted
was at law school, doing Bar
finals, so it was down to Eve to
make ends meet. It was a tough
time, but she got through it by,
among other things, making
cushions by cutting up pillows
and selling them. “I learnt to
survive, and Richard has been
brought up in that way. There
was no silver spoon in his
mouth.”
Another piece of Richard
seems to slot into place.

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