BILL CULLEN - It's A Long Way From Penny Apples

London England, Hodder & Stoughton, 2002. 1st Uk Edition, Binding: Cloth, Fine/Near Fine. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" Tall Octavo 0340826517 Hardback Hardcover. It's a Long Way From Penny Apples. Price clipped to D/J. With a Foreword by An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern TD. Above all, the book is a letter to his mother, Mary Darcy, who saw her son go from selling in the streets to taking over Renault from Waterford Crystal. The day before she died, she said to Bill: 'God bless you, son, you've borrowed £18 million. It's a long way from penny apples'. Born and bred in the touch inner city slums of Dublin, Bill Cullen was one of fourteen children, whose mother May, was a hard-working fruit-seller who still made time to create dreams for her children. When he was five years old, Liam (as he was known) was selling apples, for a penny each, from a basket hekld up by a leather belt around his neck. He left school at thirteen in order to work full time and help put food on the family table. Dublin in the '40s and '50s was a harsh place, rife with unemployment and poverty, but the Cullens were blessed with the qualities of determination, good humour and an abundabnce of love. The lessons Liam learnt from his beloved grandmother, Molly - gypsy, storyteller, fish-seller, philosopher - stood him in good stead as he progressed from selling dolls and cinema tickets on street corners to a job in a Ford car dealership, and eventually to head a company with a turnover of more than £250 million. Illustrated. 459 pp.