David Fishwick

Entrepreneur David Fishwick left school aged 16 without any qualifications. However, armed with a huge amount of determination and ambition, he's now the largest supplier of minibuses in the country.



David's first forays into business came about when he started buying and selling cars to help make ends meet as an apprentice builder. He hated working in the building trade, and at 16 he managed to persuade the owner of a back-street garage in Nelson to allow him to take a part-exchange car away, do it up and sell it on, then he would give the garage owner the £70 that was agreed. He worked on it at night while he worked on the building site during the day. When the car was gleaming, he sold it for £97. The profit he made was as much as he earned in a week as a YTS apprentice on the building sites.



He was soon selling one car a week, then six cars a month. Having a bit more money in his pocket, he was able to buy and sell cars at auctions.



At 21 he opened his own car dealership in a rented garage. After buying a run-down van, doing it up and selling it in record time, he soon realised that there was real money to be made in vans.



It wasn't long before he started to sell the occasional second-hand van and minibus. He was soon in a position to buy his own garage, then a larger one and in 1994, he switched exclusively to vans, minibuses and specialist disabled accessible vehicles. David Fishwick Van and Minibus Sales Business is now the biggest minibus supply business in Britain, offering quick and affordable customised minibuses for schools, sports teams, community groups and local authorities, has a multi-million pound turnover and employs lots of local people in the area.



David is also a big supporter of community sport. The company is a major sponsor of Championship club Burnley FC, and backs several community-based teams and young sport persons in the Lancashire.





Bank Of Dave will air on Channel 4 from 12th July and a book of the same name, published by Virgin Books, will accompany the series.