AT the age of 13, Edward Short earned his first fiver caddying at a local sports club and ‘the buzz’ he got drove him to become a millionaire.
But after a rollercoaster four decades and an infamous Grand Designs dream that turned into a nightmare and left him with crippling debt, Edward classes himself as a “minus millionaire.”
The 56-year-old businessman, who built a fortune through a successful music career, racked up £8million and saw his marriage crumble as his clifftop ‘lighthouse’ went disastrously over budget in the Grand Design’s episode labelled the “saddest ever.”
A born optimist, Edward cheerfully admits he may never pay back what he owes on Chesil Cliff House in Devon - which was last on the market for £5.25m.
“The debt is a lot higher than £5.25million,” he tells the Sun. “Technically most millionaires do owe millions but what they have in assets is usually much greater than what they owe. I've managed to turn to the dark side and become a minus millionaire.”
Still planning to borrow a further £2million to rebuild a crumbling drive on the stunning cliffside property, which is one of the few original structures, Edward says he is keeping his hopes up.
“The investors and I are still debating the best way out,” he says.
“Mentally I already know I've lost everything I put into the house so it would have to be a miracle upon miracles but the only exit plan, in my opinion, is to build a new entrance. Without that I don’t think it will sell.”
But, while the experience would have floored some, Edward says losing everything has taught him a valuable lesson.
“The peaks and troughs of money is something I have got used to and you soon realise that money breeds bad habits,” he says.
“It is not the route to happiness and you can lose who you are. You get to a place where so you're buying things you don't need and you become an addict, a toxic consumer.
“So you buy a 20 grand watch but then you want a 50 grand watch, then there’s the £150k watch. There's always another level.
"There's always a bigger boat, a better car or a better house....but it turns you into a person I didn't like being. Either you realise and get out or you’ll always be chasing the bigger boat.”
As he looks back on his financial ups and downs, for our Money Talks series, Edward reveals the designer clothes ‘addiction’ that saw him fork out £3k for a coat, the dream car that left him penniless and how his money-lender dad set the blueprint for his own property woes.
Edward’s early childhood in Plymouth and Bournemouth instilled a love of the sea which eventually drove him to Devon and what he calls his “little boy fantasy house.”
But his dad’s tendency to strain the family finances to buy property also rubbed off on him.
“My dad was a money lender for a company called Mercantile Credit so he would borrow to the max to buy a property but there was very little money for the family,” he says.
“I thought I'd gone in the opposite direction but I ended up in the same boat - only worse.”
After buying a £70,000 house, in the mid 1980s, his dad moved the family to Gerrards Cross, in Bucks, where Edward soon found a lucrative job.
“I wanted to work and have my own money from the age of 13 and I would go to a local golf club and wait to be asked to caddy,” he says.
“I can always remember getting my first £5 to caddy for four hours, which was a fortune to me back then. But as a caddy you also find lots of balls, so I used to sell the good ones for 50p and those in worse condition for 20p.
There's always a bigger boat, a better car or a better house...but it turns you into a person I didn't like being
Edward Short
"My record was 66 golf balls in one round of golf, so that was a brilliant day. I got the buzz for earning money.”
After leaving school at 16, with no qualifications, Edward landed a job at Lloyd’s bank on a salary of £3,600 but, hungry for more, soon left to become a door to door double glazing salesman.,
“I was good at talking to people and I wanted to learn sales techniques because I had heard stories about them earning a lot of money,” he recalls. “So you’d knock on doors, get 40 ‘f*** offs’ to get a couple of appointments.
“In one week, I made £2,000 in commission which was extraordinary.
“I went and blew it all on a Ford Capri 2.8i injection, which was the car of my dreams and a beautiful thing. But it left me absolutely broke and I had to borrow to pay the insurance.
“But, within weeks, I crashed the car and wrote it off. That was a lost everything moment.”
A part time job in a friend’s record shop, to earn a few extra quid, led to a change of career.
After seeing record company reps coming into the store to push albums set for release, with artwork and sample tapes, Edward applied for a job as a salesman for Polygram records.
“That was one of those life defining moments that changes everything,” he says. “It was a company car, good salary - about £18,000 which was a lot in the late 80s. There were also perks, going around record shops with tickets to gigs, promotional clothing etc and I’d be calling at HMV and big independent record shops.
“It was a great community of people and I absolutely loved it.”
Crowned Salesman of the Year on this fourth year in the job, Edward began to get noticed in the industry and was soon poached by Sony as an accounts manager.
But a lifelong fascination with TV adverts was about to lead him on a more lucrative path.
“I started looking at the TV advertised compilation albums and some of the titles and the ads were terrible,” he says. “I thought we could do better.
“Mario Warner, who had hired me at Polygram, had moved to a company specialising in TV advertised records, Dino, who had come up with a bestselling album series called Blues Brother/Soul Sister. He asked me to come and work with him.
“In that world you got a royalty on your idea and then you're into proper money because you're going to be collecting cash per unit. That blows away any salaries if your ideas work.”
Edward’s first idea, a compilation called Drive Time, went straight to number one at Woolworths.
It spawned a successful series, selling around 400,000, with Edward receiving royalties of up to 35p per unit.
He and Mario went on to form their own company, Tailor Made Music, to sell ideas to record companies in return for royalties.
One of the companies first big deals was with a company who owned Gary Glitter's catalogue so they put together a compilation album with plans for a tour.
“We were set to be number one at Woolworths, the TV advertising was booked and everything was set to go,” he says. “But the week before the release, the story of Gary Glitter’s arrest for sexual offences against children broke and the whole thing collapsed.”
Shortly after, Edward came up with a TV advertised dance album called Euphoria, which Telstar took on, and Mario also produced an album called Pure Garage.
Both went to number one and saw the company dominating the top three spots in the compilation charts for weeks.
Now 25 years old, this year, Edward’s Euphoria series is now owned by The Ministry of Sound and is soon to see its 100th release, which he says will feature “anthems of the underground.”
The dance brand bought the rights after Telstar went bust and the advent of the iPod, which allowed kids to carry thousands of singles in their pocket, spelt the end of the compilation boom.
Rethinking his future, Edward gave in to the call of the sea and decided it was time to buy a coastal property.
Together with then wife Hazel and their two daughters Nicole, now 24, and Lauren, 22, Edward moved to a £700,000 clifftop home in Croyde,
“There was a trend of people buying up big houses by the sea but the proper players would keep the house in London as well,” he said.
“But I sold up to buy in Devon and we moved there in 2004. We did it up to a high standard and then sold it for £2.4 million in 2008.
“I've done well on properties before that by doing them up or by spotting an opportunity. For example, when they were changing the Chiltern line and adding a fast train from Amersham into Marylebone that took half an hour, I bought in Chorleywood, then Little Chalfont and Amersham.
“The family lived in all three properties for a while and then sold for a profit.”
Despite the money lost on Chesil Cliff House, Edward says buying it in the first place was a sound decision.
Paying £1.4m for the original house with panoramic sea views - which he later demolished to build his Grand Design - he moved the family there in 2009.
“It was paradise to live in and we were there until 2015,” he says. “But it had to be knocked down because in front of the cliffs there is sand that was blown in from years ago and that was eroding.
“I knew that you need a certain amount of space around a new house when you are building so I couldn't wait for the sand to disappear, taking my building space so there was a bit of a time limit and knocking it down was the right idea.
“With hindsight, obviously, building a lighthouse was not the right idea but I still own it and we're still not at the end of that chapter.”
Inspired by the luxury villas of Ibiza, where he promoted club nights in the 1990s, Edward hired Brighton architect Alan Phillips to design his dream home,
Grand Designs began filming with the couple in 2016, and with costs soaring, Edward’s refusal to compromise left presenter Kevin McCloud gasping with disbelief in the now infamous episode of the Channel 4 show.
Viewers were shocked as the couple’s original £1.8million loan spiralled to £2.5million, then £4million.
The show’s cameras returned in 2018, when work had stopped on the house and, by the time he resumed in 2019, he had split with wife Hazel.
While the former couple remain the best of friends, he admits the build was “awful for the family” and says he “pulled the stability rug from under them,without being able to give answers of how we were going to get out of it, other than that I had to carry on.”
The house, and another smaller property on the premises, were originally on the market for £10m but he has so far been unable to sell and, in January. and, after failing to find a buyer, his creditors called in receivers to put it on the market for a cut price £5.25m.
But the debts keep mounting - and he reveals some creditors are keen to take their pound of flesh.
“The worst spend I've ever had was paying a rearrangement fee to extend the loan which one company, who charged me £120,000 to extend it for a year!” he says
“They're doing me a favour but that was an extraordinary lump sum and that was on top of the original arrangement fee so it’s almost quarter of a million in total, which is just money down the drain. That hurt a lot.”
Money saving hack?
Stop looking for things to buy that you don't need. You can get easily trapped into thinking that if I buy this, I have this I'll be happier. It doesn't work like that. There's always a bigger boat, a better car or a better house.
Which supermarket do you shop at?
Lidl and Aldi.
Have you ever rowed with a partner over money?
Although Hazel and I are now divorced, I will always speak well of her because she is a wonderful person, but she obviously didn't like my cavalier attitude to money. I've always had an easy come, easy go attitude to money and if it's there I'll spent it. Jalia is much more careful than me as well but at the moment I haven't got it to spend.
Are you better off than your parents?
I was - substantially so.
What is the most expensive car you owned?
There was a point I had 15 cars but they were to make money. They were modern classics. The most expensive one I had was a Porsche 911 turbo, made in 2007. It was £92,000
Most expensive pair of shoes?
I love this Italian brand, Pratesi. They are only sold in Florence and they are around £300.
If you could bring back one high street shop what would it be?
The classic record shop. I'd love to see back on every high street way.The vibe of those record shops with the smell of vinyl, with booths where you could listen to the record, and the excitement of a new release. There’s nothing like it.
How much was the first property you bought?
My first flat was £62,000. It was in Farnham Common, Buckinghamshire.
While he’s now reigned in his spending Edward - who has found love again with fiancee Jalia Nambasa - admits to expensive tastes in the past, particularly when it comes to designer clothes.
“I am a well known clothes addict,” he says. “I have an extraordinary large collection of clothes because Hazel used to be a fashion buyer for Selfridges, Harrods and Fenwicks and she took me to sample sales which got me hooked.
“I’m the same size as I was then I've spent a lot of money on clothes and kept loads of vintage pieces.
“The most expensive item I have is a Giorgio Armani coat bought in Venice for about three grand but a genuine Giorgio Armani piece holds a great would still hold a great deal of value.
“I hardly buy anything new now because it’s not got the quality of the old stuff. I tend to buy on eBay.
“I’ve got my own wardrobe and the attic filled plus some in the kids’ wardrobes.
“Jalia does look at me with pleading eyes and tells me I need to get rid of more clothes which I have started to do.”
However bad things get for Edward, however, he has pleasures in life that is absolutely free.
“The sea and the outdoors are the things that nobody can ever take away,” he says. “I am positive about life because most of what I love is outside. When I'm inside all I need is a bed and a telly and hopefully the love of a good partner.”
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