Book – Good as Gold, Rags to Riches. By Ralph Gold

I love business biographies.It’s great to read about successful people.It’s good to learn about their ideas, decisions and vision for their business and how they want to live their life.I knew of the Gold Brothers, mainly for the purchase of Birmingham City Football Club but also because of Anne Summers, their ‘porn’ connection with David Gold, co- owner of Birmingham City FC.I picked up Good as Gold as it was the only one of any interest in a tiny, one room library close to where I had just moved to. OK, I picked up a Martha Stewart publication too but just for added light reading.From the minute I started reading, Ralph Gold, the younger of the 2 Gold brothers, had me hooked. It started in Gold’s wartime childhood. Talk of bombs, air raid sirens, lost friends, new friends, family and of course food rations.However, as much as Gold talks about their poor start in life, they weren’t as poverty stricken as he makes reference too throughout the early chapters. I figure virtually everyone was poor in the war, except aristocracy. England wasn’t full of gazillionaire entrepreneurs as it appears to be now. Both, Ralph and his elder brother were keen on competitive sports and indeed Ralph boxed at national level. That took them away from the bread line by their late teens as did their wayward and often absent father who was an early entrepreneur, before the word was widely used. In fact he started the Gold publishing empire that the 2 brothers eventually became equal partners in as they got older.Rags to Riches in true enough but the rags weren’t around for long. They were comfortable in their early adulthood and wealthy thereafter. The revelations and ongoing battle they had with the authorities in constantly proving their innocence of their ‘porn’ crimes were fascinating. They lived in anticipation of raids whereby their magazines were confiscated and sometimes never returned or otherwise returned months later. You have to admire them for their cash flow systems in place during the early years.It was an enormously, riveting read to the very end and incredibly hard to put down.I can’t explain why.Read it and see.8/10Inspiration Factor 7/10