241 Pizza

With the small amount of money he made from the deal, Whateley was finally in business. He started his own property company, Castlemore Securities, and began buying petrol stations.

He said: “I noticed that oil companies were paying a lot of money for petrol stations, so I deliberately set out to find sites for them.

“I drove round towns, going down road after road. The best time was about 4am because there was no other traffic.”

But it was not easy to get started. “I was getting desperate, but then, late one night, I found a place. It was on a busy road with a wide grass verge.

I thought if I could get planning permission for a petrol station and the council made the road a dual carriageway, it would be very valuable.”

His instincts paid off. The site was zoned for retailing and a visit to the local council’s highways department revealed that a contract for widening the road had been awarded.

The asking price was £20,000 and Whateley offered £18,500, but another developer had spotted the potential and a bidding war erupted.

“The agent was very fair and asked for sealed bids by a certain date.

“I asked another surveyor what he thought its maximum value was. He said £30,000, so I added 10% plus £100.”

Offering almost 70% more than the asking price may have seemed reckless, but Whateley had studied the deal from every angle.

He said: “I believe in detail, detail and more detail. If you have a plan, make sure you have a back-up, another back-up and a back stop.”

His confidence paid off: he got planning permission and sold the site for £147,500 — a cash profit of £114,400. At last he had real capital to work with.

Whateley continued to invest in petrol stations until, in the early 1970s, he moved into residential development and put together a parcel of land in Shirley, Solihull, that he sold for £1.2m.

It was his first million-pound deal. But the figure wasn’t the only thing that was important. “They paid me the money in three instalments,” he said. “It was just before the recession — everybody else was getting into trouble, but I was going liquid.”

Castlemore is now the country’s largest private developer. It is redeveloping the historic former GPO building next to Edinburgh’s Waverley railway station. In Southall, west London, the company is redeveloping the gasworks, one of the biggest sites in the country.

Now 61, Whateley, nevertheless still works seven days a week and has no plans at present to step down.

He said: “I’m up at 6.30 every morning. I go to the gym and push weights. Then I go to work. People who retire are crazy. I have so many interesting things to do.”

He added: “I’m a worker. My grandfather was a coalminer in Mansfield. I’m very proud of that and I consider it a privilege to work.”

Whateley said the secret to his success has been meticulous planning. “I cannot stress enough the importance of detail, detail and more detail,” he said. “I never assume anything.”

Duncan Farmer