The Professor Paul Reynolds Story

Paul is known for his hard work and dedication in fighting for the voters of NW Leicestershire – and his ‘no-nonsense’ forensic approach in successfully fighting the system, on behalf of residents and businesses in the area. He has lived off & on in the constituency for 32 years, and now lives in Castle Donington. Paul attended state schools in Nottingham, and spent much of his early childhood in the constituency.

Paul is a Professor of Economics and Government with extensive front-line experience of global affairs.   He has worked on many assignments overseas, including setting up secure regional government in Basra and Nasiriyah in Iraq  (where he was injured), working with the UK military, and in 2008 as a special adviser alongside our troops and Foreign Office in Afghanistan.  He has also undertaken charity work, such as distributing food and footwear to impoverished children in Cambodia and teaching parentless children in Ghana.
 

As well as being a highly-respected adviser to the Liberal Democrat Party in the UK, Paul has advised government leaders in more than 60 countries worldwide, (including 4 Presidents, 6 Prime ministers, and 11 Finance Ministers). He is a regular contributor to TV news bulletins and to programmes such as Newsnight and The Politics Show. Paul is a technical adviser to the LibDem Globalisation Policy Group, which includes Dr Vince Cable MP.

Paul is known for having criticised the UK labour government for its handling of the economy leading up to the financial crash, and warning against the policies and practices that led to the current tragic Economic Depression, since the year 2001.

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At the age of 13 Paul left school, in Nottingham, without any qualifications. Ten years later he had secured a place at University in London. During his time at University he always had two jobs since he did not qualify for a full grant – ranging from bar work to a job for an American lottery business.

We asked Paul to describe what happened in the intervening 10 years.

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‘Due to family problems, I had to leave school in Nottingham aged 13. I lived in Hatfield, and then in Marylebone, London, before landing in Toronto, Canada to join my father . There was a hiccup. My father wasn’t in Toronto !  After some interesting adventures I arrived on my own, aged just 14 in Vancouver. My father had encountered some serious immigration difficulties, had lost his job, and was living in a grimy freeway motel in the ‘drug dealing outskirts of Vancouver’.

‘However, things looked up a bit for a while. I spent a few months at school in Vancouver, before encountering continuing family and legal problems, which resulted in my childhood homelessness. In the snowy winter I would sleep in the 24 hr launderette or bus station, until being turfed out by the police. I got to know some of the older homeless men and women on the streets, some of

which were amazingly selfless and kind. During the day I would beg for money in the financial district, and at night I would wait until the late fast food places closed, and ask for food that was to be thrown away in the back alleys. Some staff were very kind. Sitting in the snowy alley with various elderly drug addicts at 2am eating free pizza is one of my enduring memories.’

‘I moved into the apartment of an older female friend, but following an armed drug gang raid on the house, I left Vancouver and hitched to San Francisco. I was taken in by some very dangerous people, but soon was able to earn a cash living by selling popcorn on the street from my own little trolley, which I bought for $10. So by my 15th birthday I was running my own little business in the daytime, and sleeping where I could in various ‘squats’ at night.’

‘Hitching back and forth to Vancouver, was pretty easy in those days. On the way, once, I stopped to attend the funeral of the famous musician Jimi Hendrix in Seattle. On one such trip to Vancouver, I bumped into my father in the park by the beach in the summer, which ultimately resulted in my return to the UK. ‘

‘Changing my US Dollars at Heathrow, I had arrived back in the UK with a total of £12.  Having nowhere to go my first night was spent at the airport, but by the end of the next day

I had found a job, and luckily, discovered that my only remaining contact in the UK, a friend in Nottingham, had moved to London and was prepared to put me up for a week. Bingo.’

‘My job was selling chickens on Smithfield Central Meat Market near St Paul’s Cathedral. I would start work at 5am, work till 930am and then travel to the company’s warehouse in Southall for my ‘second job’ where I would work till 7pm. That is where I acquired my teenage habit for having two jobs !’

‘By the age of 18 I was staying in cheap digs in Notting Hill, in the house of a Russian oil engineer with three  fellow lodgers – all African immigrants. This led to me to visiting North Africa and finding an apartment in a small former French garrison town - and travelling to different countries on my own.  I was caught up in an anti Soviet riot, was injured and hospitalised. In the atmosphere of Communist propaganda and paranoia in the North Africa of the time, at aged 19 I was arrested as a ‘suspicious’ foreigner, imprisoned, had my money confiscated, and then deported to Spain. Arriving via Majorca, the Barcelona rail authorities took pity, gave me some food and a free ticket to Paris. For this I have been forever grateful. I arrived in England having not eaten for four days.’

‘Back in the UK I landed a salesman job with a company car. I lived in London with some Greek immigrants.  I ended up in Greece in the summer, where I met a Lebanese refugee who had landed on a boat from Beirut, where her mother had just died and house destroyed in the civil war. To this young woman I owe a debt of gratitude. She persuaded me to go to evening classes, take A Levels and GCSEs and try and get into University.  Nine months later I was the proud possessor of 3 A levels and 3 O levels, and gained entry to University in London. For this I am grateful to the marvellous headmaster in my state school in Nottingham, for his personal interest in my abilities, which stayed with me and enabled me to pass these exams in lighting quick time a decade later. His name was Mr Strutt, but his nickname was ‘Jed’, after Jedudiah Strutt’ the engineer. I have never been able to remember his real first name’.

‘During this latter period I had managed to re-establish contact with my mother and stepfather in England. They had moved  to Hemington in the NW Leics constituency. After 10 years my life had returned to some kind of normalcy.’

‘However, that didn’t last for long……..’  (more soon)