Leeds entrepreneur to star in Secret Millionaire

AN ENTREPRENEUR who grew up on a council estate on the outskirts of Leeds is the star of next week’s hit channel four show The Secret Millionaire.

Marketing expert Carl Hopkins travels to the former mining town of Easington in County Durham, the setting for Billy Elliot and one of the most deprived areas in Britain, to see if he can help the declining community.

Mr Hopkins is the former chairman of direct marketing agency JDA Group.

He joined JDA in 1984 as a junior designer and rose through the ranks to take over the business in 2000 as managing director after a management buy-out.

Between then and 2005, he expanded the business from 48 to 75 staff and trebled profits to £750,000 before selling it to Martin Smith of The Direct Marketing Group in 2007.

Since leaving JDA, Mr Hopkins has been involved in a variety of businesses.

He has invested in Huddersfield web-based charity fundraising business JumbleAID.

Mr Hopkins said: “As a young kid… I used to want someone to come round that corner and help me and no-one ever did so I thought this might be a good way of being the person that goes round that corner. Once a thriving colliery town, Easington has been in steady economic decline since its pits closed in the 1980s, leaving thousands unemployed and destroying a way of life that had existed for generations.”

As part of the show Mr Hopkins spends time working as a community warden and finds the site of the old pit.

He discovers that despite its problems, the town that has not lost touch with its mining past and, thanks to the efforts of a few dedicated volunteers, many of the touchstones of traditional colliery life have remained intact.

His undercover mission leads him to the Easington Colliery brass band which still takes part in competitions across the country, but after losing its main sponsor is struggling to facing a bleak future.

The Secret Millionaire will air on Channel Four at 9pm on Tuesday August 26.