Bingo Caller’s Small Business Jackpot
After 24 years working in a bingo hall, Gill Barton decided it was time to take a gamble herself.
The 50-year-old mother of five set up her own training and recruitment company despite warnings that it would never get off the ground.
Now she is a multi-millionairess and has exchanged her modest semi for a seven-bedroom mansion plus a holiday home by the sea.
‘No one who knew me beforehand can quite believe how my life has changed,’ said Mrs Barton, now 62, from Solihull, West Midlands.
‘Mrs Barton, who left school at 16, began work at the bingo hall after the birth of her third son, Darren. She said: ‘I was a bingo caller for years, and it was a great job, but I only received the minimum wage. The jackpot back then was just a few thousand pounds. It was a job that really suited me as I was raising my five sons as well. I worked shifts and it was easy to fit it around what the boys needed from me.
‘Frank worked as an engraver, but he also did some bar work in the evenings as we had to try and make ends meet. We lived in a semi and we had to manage with bunk beds for the boys as we didn’t have enough bedrooms.
Mrs Barton was promoted to staff training at the bingo hall at the age of 36, and in this position she reached her top wage of £16,000.
‘It was then I decided that I really loved training the staff,’ she said. ‘I’d have liked to have branched out on my own, but I didn’t want to leave the security of a paid job. We had the boys to look after, so I needed every penny that I had.’
At the end of 1995, however, just after her 50th birthday, Mrs Barton submitted a business plan to the Chamber of Commerce to set up her own training business.
Gill may not have started a unique business, she did do something unique in itself. She took herself from the bottom and built her way up into a mansion. That is amazing enough, but she also did this having ended her education at 16 years old. If anything, Gill is an example of the drive it takes to create a successful business.
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