There are two distinct sides to Duncan Bannatyne: nasty, snarling, Dragon’s Den Duncan who hasn’t spoken to two of his brothers since they accused him of being “pathologically tight”. (He says they’re “just miserable people”.) And nice dad-of-six Duncan who once owned a fleet of ice-cream vans and simply melts at the mention of disabled and disadvantaged children. Or, as the The Daily Record put it when he donated more than £50,000 to a children’s cancer charity after meeting a young leukaemia sufferer, “When the Dragon met Liam, he turned into Mr Softee.”

Bannatyne’s empire, largely in the hotel and leisure industry, is valued at £320m and you get the impression he’s counted every penny. Feeling comfortable has been a gradual process. “My house in Stockport is worth around £600,000, but we live there because it’s normal.”

The kids all go to the same schools and they’re out playing in the cul-de-sac all the time. It’s like living on a caravan site.”

His great luxury is a “splendid” villa in the south of France, which costs “knocking on £60,000 a year, including staff” to maintain. The nearest he came to owning a yacht was a sailing boat on Lake Windermere, which he had for a while because the children liked going up and down on it.

Flashness has never been his thing. “The other Dragons have butlers and chauffeurs, but I don’t see the point in paying someone to stand by my car all day. The BBC sends a car for me.” You see? Canny.

Bannatyne is equally careful with the £1m “from the sale of some shares” that he poured into his own charitable trust in June last year “Oh, yes. Absolutely. I couldn’t give it away, otherwise. This way I know where the money has gone and every penny is accounted for.”

The Bannatyne Charitable Trust now supports 27 charities, including Well Child, Birmingham Children’s Hospital’s Red Balloon Appeal, Zoe’s Place baby hospice and Scottish International Relief, the parent charity of Mary’s Meals, which distributes basic meals to 350,000 children in Africa.

“My own children all have trust funds, but I intend to give the rest of my money away,” he says. Then, ever the entrepreneur: “I look at projects on a case-by-case basis and want to give where I can expect concrete results.”

He built Casa Bannatyne, an orphanage for HIV-positive children in Targu-Mures, Romania, in 2004. “The surgeon at the hospital said, ‘You’re wasting your time building an orphanage — half these children will be dead by the time you’ve finished it.’” Bannatyne sacked the “hopeless” architect and completed it using his own health-club designers. Within months the first children were in. He quickly realised there was an enormous payback. “Those kids wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for the orphanage and the extraordinary people who work there. We have 19 kids now. The most exciting thing in my diary this year is the wedding of Adela, one of the girls we saved.”

Thanks to Bannatyne’s support, Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, founder of Scottish International Relief, has been able to open another Casa Bannatyne in Colombia.

Bannatyne grew up on Clydebank, Glasgow, one of seven children.

“We didn’t have designer clothes or TV, we walked a couple of miles to school and, looking back, how great was that? It wasn’t that tough. We had parents who strove for us.”

One of the charities his foundation supports is Fare, Family Action in Rogerfield and Easterhouse, two gang-dominated areas of Glasgow. “We have this thing in Glasgow now called ‘recreational violence’. When I visited I saw people with scars all over their faces. Fare provides support for families, children come in after school. There’s someone to take an interest in them.”

So far, £600-700,000 of his original £1m has been spent. “Most of it is tied up in the business. But if the trust money runs out, I’ll find more and keep fundraising.” There are charity balls — “we can raise £80,000 on the night that way” — and he’s particularly keen on the concept of Workplace Giving. “Giving straight from their pay is the most efficient way for employees to give. It means as much as 40% extra for charities.” He hasn’t ruled out adopting an orphan himself. “I’ve thought about it a lot, but I’ve watched the children I’ve supported grow up and live their own lives, not my life. I go to Romania and see them having aspirations and dreams. I’m not someone who can run an orphanage or do any of the things the people running these projects do. But I’m good at making money and intend to keep passing it on.”

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