The day Michael Brown called

By Humphrey Carter “NOT another charity golf event”, was my immediate reaction when Michael Brown got in touch with me last September, by the end of a week which included two interviews, one about his charity foundation and the other about the Lib Dems “mishandling” his £2.5 donation, the Bulletin's rare photographs of the Scottish millionaire were in big demand as few people knew what Michael Brown looked like...or was like He admits to being “larger than life” but he is a tall, well built, welcoming and likeable Glaswegian who does not drink, despite his father having been an executive for a whisky distillery, but smokes Camel cigarettes, wears comfortable designer clothes and sports a pony tail and goatee beard. He describes himself as an entrepreneur who “has had a few knocks” over the years. His relatively new Palma office is open-plan and fitted with the very latest computer equipment with two screens flickering with global stock market facts and figures. On one wall is a mini-basketball hoop, on another a framed photograph of his father Ian Downes Brown after whom he named his IDB Foundation and who died nearly three years ago, three years on Tuesday to be exact. There is a model of the Ethiopian village he was raising funds to help build and a small collection of books about Scotland. He was not the perfect pupil, he failed his exams and had little more success as a rock promoter and model recruiting agent. However, in the mid 90*s, aged 26, he returned to the States, having spent three years there when he was 12, and got involved with the property market and started to make some serious money. Since returning from the States he has also enjoyed success as a stock options broker. In 1999 he and his wife Sharon moved here to Majorca where Sharon is thought to be monitoring development.