Paul Rackham was a man of restless energy and formidable resilience who built and lost fortunes more than once, yet never lost his appetite for work.

Born in the summer of 1936 in the village of Peasenhall near Saxmundham, Suffolk, Mr Rackham was the son of Basil Rackham, a master thatcher whose family had worked in the trade for more than 300 years.

His mother, Minnie, was a former nursing sister at Halesworth Hospital.

Paul Rackham (left) in 1997 (Image: Newsquest)

Within months of his birth the family moved north to Walpole, where Basil had grown up, before later settling in Barnham, where Basil became resident thatcher to the Duke of Grafton on the Euston Estate.

Life was austere, but it instilled in Mr Rackham a work ethic and ambition that would define his life.

“What little we had was hard earned,” he later wrote in his autobiography. “A fact of life that not only instilled a strong work ethic in me at a very early age, but also nurtured a hunger to achieve something more.”

From childhood he showed little interest in school but a keen fascination with farming, animals and trade.

Encouraged by his mother’s belief that “everything in life is a challenge”, he began earning money by the age of 10, milking cows, chopping firewood, catching moles for their pelts, shooting rabbits and pigeons, and buying and selling livestock.

Shy and self-described as “a bit of a loner”, Mr Rackham nonetheless possessed what he called “an inner confidence in my own abilities or in my will to succeed”.

That confidence carried him to the Norfolk School of Agriculture at the age of 14, though his business ventures proved so successful that he left early to concentrate on trading full........

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