TV Dragon takes her children out of school for year-long world tour
SHE has made millions backing entrepreneurs.
Now Dragons’ Den judge Sarah Willingham has made what she considers to be her ‘best investment’ yet, by whisking off her family on a year-long holiday.
The 42-year-old has decided that she ‘needs to be a mum’ and left the UK last month, taking her four children out of school to go travelling.
The entrepreneur and her husband Michael Willingham-Toxvaerd, 40, took Minnie, ten, Monti, eight, Nelly, six, and Marly, five, to Canada before embarking on a tour of South America, stopping in Ecuador, Guatemala, Colombia and Patagonia. Then they will journey to Australia, followed by Bali, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Japan.
Explaining her decision, Miss Willingham said: ‘I need to be a mum. I need to nurture, I need to cook and feed my kids, I need to cuddle them – that’s just who I am.’
She added: ‘You have to find your natural balance and I have learnt by making mistakes. For example, you absolutely can’t work and try to be a mum at the same time as you’ll end up doing neither well. So I’ve become really strict at separating that time.’
As a result, her children learnt not to call her while she is working, unless it was a legitimate emergency. She said: ‘Occasionally there’s a lost teddy bear or I need to help Dumbo (their toy elephant) who’s trapped, but they know it needs to be a crisis.’
Miss Willingham joined BBC Two’s Dragons’ Den, which sees budding entrepreneurs pitch ideas for investment, last year. Prior to entering the den, she was best known for buying a successful chain of upmarket Indian restaurants called Bombay Bicycle club and managing Pizza Express. She is rumoured to be worth £12million. In an interview, published in
‘I need to be a mum’
this week’s Hello!, the businesswoman described herself as ‘the happiest person in the world’ now she has abandoned her work commitments for a year of adventure with her family.
Miss Willingham, who has been described as a ‘mumpreneur’, also boasts a property portfolio and has been keeping tabs on her business interests by getting up early to deal with emails before her children wake up.
As part of their education, the children are in charge of the daily budget. Their schools were ‘unbelievably supportive’ about them being taken out of formal education for a year, Miss Willingham said, adding: ‘What they’re seeing of the world and their understanding of life is something you wouldn’t get from a year at school.’
The children will be joining various schools along the way, including a circus school in Byron Bay, Australia, as well as being home schooled.
Miss Willingham added: ‘Minnie’s geography subject this year is volcanoes and we’ll be living at the bottom of one for six weeks in Guatemala.’
Miss Willingham’s decision to bring her family and work life closer together may come as a surprise because last year she claimed it was not possible as a working mother to have it all. She said: ‘For me, I have to be a mum. I feel it in my tummy. I can’t sacrifice it. But that doesn’t mean I have to be a mum all the time. Far from it.’
She added: ‘When I am working I am all over it, head down, not a single second is wasted.’
Miss Willingham has also previously spoken about breastfeeding in the boardroom after forgoing maternity leave.