Vantastic celebs!
LORD ALAN SUGAR: Apprentice boss Alan is the ultimate White Van Man made good, after he started out selling goods from the back of a Minivan in east London in the Sixties.
Lord Sugar, below, bought his motor for just £80 when he was 19, and his first sale out of the back was 100 car radio aerials he’d picked up for £50. By lunchtime on the same day, he’d knocked them all out for a quid each.
Sugar, 69, went on to mastermind the Amstrad computer empire and is now a multi-millionaire with a private jet and a collection of classic Rolls-Royce and Bentley cars. PAUL WHITEHOUSE: Comedian Paul might have got the idea for The Fast Show from the way his White Van Man mates drove when he was a plasterer.
Paul, 58, had enrolled on a Development Studies course at the University of East Anglia but left after just a year to work as a clerk, then a plasterer, until the mid-eighties.
He then met comic Harry Enfield through a mutual friend and soon went on to become a funny-van in his own right. Suits him! PAUL McCARTNEY: The Beatles legend Sir Paul used to work for a firm called Speedy Prompt Delivery before his musical career look off. Paul, now 74 and a multi-millionaire songwriter, started out carrying parcels, but he added: “I was only with them about two weeks because I got laid off.” GUY RITCHIE: Movie director Guy recalls how as a builder he mastered the colourful language favoured by some White Van Men. He loved shouting leery remarks at women who passed by the building sites where he worked. The 48-year-old Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels supremo – father of Madonna’s son Rocco – got a reputation as a “cheeky git”. Guy, from Fulham, London, worked as a brickie for eight years before deciding there was mortar life... then his movie career really got motoring.
ISON FORD: As an actor, he’s riving women crazy for years. n his early days, Harrison used driving around working as a ter. after starring in American i, Ford was making £300 less a n his acting roles than he was is hands. nded the part as Han Solo r Wars because he was ng on the floor wears toolbelt in a Hollymovie mogul’s office irector George Lucas in. he has not forgotten d lifestyle as Transit he keeps a workshop at ome in Wyoming, but I have lost a lot of the hat once gave me pleasure.” N KEATING: Former Boyzone Ronan used to drive a white fore his pop singing career hit ht note. Irish star, who now owns nine aid: “We used to travel around d in a white Transit doing all rap nightclubs and getting tte butts and bottles of beer n at us.” SEAN CONNERY: The Bond legend, below, was the most dashing delivery man ever when he dropped off potatoes and corn after he was invalided out of the Royal Navy. Those wheely good looks of the rugged Scot won him his role as 007. STAN BOARDMAN: The Scouse comic used to work as a pipe-fitter before finding fame as a stand-up. The star says his van had so many holes in the floor he could count the cats’ eyes on the road. BEN HAENOW: The lad from Croydon, south London wowed the nation and became 2014’s £1million X Factor winner. But he vowed to keep hold of his trusty van, which is lucky because he was dropped by music mogul Simon Cowell in 2016 when he failed to hit the big time. VINNIE JONES: It was a case of Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Exhausts for hardman Vinnie before he became a professional footballer and actor.
The 52-year-old was “White Vinnie Man” – working as a hodcarrier before he got his break as one of Wimbledon’s Crazy Gang. CHARLIE DIMMOCK: Gardening telly babe Charlie got a taste of the White Van Woman lifestyle before finding fame on gardening show Groundforce.
Charlie, who as a child used to travel with her grandfather on his rounds as village gardener, later worked in a garden centre.
She got her telly job after installing a fish pond for an ITV programme called Grass Roots back in 1991. LAUREN POPE: The Only Way is the White Van for this leggy Essex babe.
Businesswoman and reality star Lauren was spotted heading to the shops in Brentwood in her white van back in 2014. Well, at least she’d be able to fit all her shopping bags in the back...