ME and my MONEY

CRAIG Charles, DJ and comedian, came close to losing his home during the 2008 financial crisis despite being able to command fees of more than £10,000 a night working as a DJ.

Charles, who played Lister in cult TV sitcom Red Dwarf, had to fight to keep his fivebedroom house in Cheshire after taking out two ‘mighty’ mortgages and failing to sell an £860,000 property in Southampton. He was reduced to fishing around for coins in bottles of loose change before interest rates were dramatically slashed by the Bank of England in 2008, bringing down his borrowing costs.

Charles, who presents The Craig Charles Funk and Soul Show on BBC Radio 6 Music and is playing the Reload festival in Norwich and the Lost Village festival in Lincolnshire this summer, is regularly asked to DJ at parties held by multimillionaires.

He has installed a subterranean bar in his home, along with a library and a pool, and says he earned so much from Red Dwarf in the 1990s it would take him months to get round to cashing cheques for six-figure sums.

But he still looks back with fondness on the bag of chips he used to buy for half a penny as a child in Liverpool.

Now 53, Charles lives with wife Jackie and daughters Anna Jo, 19, and 14-yearold Nellie in Cheshire.

A new series of Red Dwarf will be broadcast on Dave next month.