The story of Tim Waterstone begins in the 1940s with a small boy sitting on the floor of a bookshop in the town of Crowborough, East Sussex, devouring books on the First World War and the novels of Arthur Ransome and John Buchan.

Mr Waterstone’s passionate connection with books lies behind his remarkable successes – and, some would say, his setbacks. He originally worked for his father’s tea-broking business in India, followed by Allied Breweries, before joining WH Smith in 1973. When Smith’s made him redundant in 1982, he took the £6,000 he was given, together with £100,000 of venture capital, and set up Waterstone’s Booksellers – selling it to his previous employers nine years later for £47 million.

But the plot thickened in 1998, when the business demerged from WH Smith and was acquired by HMV. Mr Waterstone grew disillusioned with the bookstores’ management, and launched a series of attempts to buy back the company he loved. Six times he has tried and failed, the most recent being last May when he walked away from a bid a week after tabling an offer worth up to £280 million, backed by Lazard Equity Partners. Recent woes at HMV have revived the possibility of a sale.

Mr Waterstone’s other venture, the Daisy & Tom concept of children’s department stores selling everything from toys to hairdressing for the undernines, has met with mixed fortunes, but could now provide a fresh twist to the tale as it faces a sale to Mothercare. “I love running my own show, employing people, seeing a dream through to reality,” he has said. “It’s at the heart of me and I’ve never wanted to do anything else.”

In his spare time, Mr Waterstone has written three novels as well as a book on his approach to entrepreneurship, Swimming Against the Stream. Thrice married, he has eight children.

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