Cash was king for his emotionally cold mother
CHILDHOOD
Far from a rags-to-riches tale, Green was born into a well-off family from North London in March 1952.
His mum Alma built a buy-to-let property business and dad Simon’s firm repaired radios and rented out TVs.
But the book claims the children’s upbringing was “emotionally barren”. Of Alma, it says she “starved her children of affection, relentlessly drilling into them the importance of making money above all else” and played them off against each other to “toughen them”.
Alma’s overbearing personality was in contrast to her husband who, it is alleged, once became addicted to painkillers he was taking for crippling headaches. When Green was just 12 his father died, aged only 49.
“Alma reacted with a characteristic lack of emotion. She is said to have telephoned one of Simon’s siblings and told him, ‘Your brother’s lying here dead. You’d better deal with it’,” says the book.
Green was at a boys’ boarding school in Oxfordshire but is said to have suddenly left, aged 15, with claims he had been expelled, something dismissed by his then headmaster.
Green forged a career in business and became the apple of his mother’s eye.
His sister Elizabeth became a teacher and married a graphic designer.
The book claims they never saw eye to eye.
It says: “Sir Philip Green and his sister, Elizabeth, had continued their childhood feud into adulthood.
“While he pursued material wealth, she trained as a teacher, then ran off to live in an ashram in India.” The pair came together for Alma’s 90th birthday party, in 2007.
During the bash, Green’s children Chloe and Brandon are said to have performed a song with the lyrics: “Hello, Grandma. It’s you we should be thankin’, for what Dad’s been bankin’. It’s ‘cos of you we don’t have to work.”
When Alma died, aged 96, she is said to have left about £2.3million in trust to Green and his wife Tina, but just £100,000 to Elizabeth.