My Story

In summer 2000 a new media phenomenon was born - Big Brother. Rivetting the viewing public and the media alike, it was watched by over 10 million people.The very first winner was Craig Phillips, the endearing Liverpudlian 'chippie with a heart of gold'. He emerged from the big Brother house with 3.7 million votes and promptly gave his entire 70,000 winnings to a friend with Downs Syndrome.Craig already had an established and successful construction business and after leaving Big Brother went on to combine this with his new-found media savvy to forge a brilliant career spanning both worlds. He went on to present and produce shows for BBC, ITV and Discovery Channel, as well as making guest appearances on some of the most popular shows on TV including The Weakest Link, Bo! Selecta, and Children in Need.Alongside this he has set up a skills centre to train young people. He gives inspirational talks to schools and universities and has raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for numerous charities. Not bad for a dyslexic working class boy from a deprived area of Liverpool. Craig's is the ultimate story of triumph over adversity. But it could have been so different...

Préface
The inspirational life story of the first Big Brother winner

Auteur

Craig Phillips was born in Seaforth, Liverpool in 1971, the younger of two children. His family moved to Shropshire in the late 1980s, and at the age of eighteen, Craig secured a bricklaying apprenticeship whilst working for a local construction company.

Determined to ensure he excelled in his chosen profession, he attended further night-school classes in advanced brickwork and civil engineering, achieving City & Guilds qualifications. Before appearing on Big Brother, Craig had run his own building company for nearly a decade, which had an annual turnover of more than £1 million.

In 2005, he set up the largest independent construction training college in the north-west of England, which has so far seen thousands of young people achieve NVQ apprenticeships. He remains as passionate as ever about construction and maintains an impressive property portfolio.