'I fell in love with a gorgeous girl who worked in a bric-a-brac shop'

When Richard Branson took me on a walk through Notting Hill, west London, a few weeks ago, he was looking forward to celebrating the 50th anniversary of meeting his wife, Joan, in February. “She’s got her plans, I've got mine and we're both supposed to be surprising each other,” he told me. Joan was not ill. There was no reason to worry.

- 

Then on Tuesday a heartbroken Branson announced that his lifelong partner had died unexpectedly at the age of 80. Joan had been in hospital in England after sustaining a back injury. Branson was in a room just down the corridor from her, having been transferred there after coming off his bike in India and hurting his shoulder.

“We laughed about how typical it was of us to end up on the same floor, like love-struck teenagers delighted to find each other again,” he wrote. She was in “positive spirits and getting stronger”, then suddenly “she was gone, quickly and painlessly”. He was by her side when she died. He has not revealed the cause of her death.

Just weeks before, our route took us from Vernon Yard, the once rundown mews where he had his first office, to the houseboat where he and Joan lived when their children were young because it was the only home they could afford. It was, the 75-year-old entrepreneur said, “where it all began”.

And Joan - his “rock” and “guiding light” as he put it in his statement last week - was woven through the conversation from the start to the finish of our walk.

As we sat down for coffee in the Notting Hill Bakery on Portobello Road before setting off, Branson reminisced fondly about meeting his wife. “I fell in love with a gorgeous girl who worked in a little bric-a-brac shop called Dodo's just along there,” he said. “It sold things like ‘Dive In Here For Tea’ and Coca-Cola signs. The owner said I was only allowed to go in and see Joan if I bought something.” He filled the houseboat with vintage signs and when he ran out of space gave them to people as presents. One that read “Now That’s What I Call Music” went to his friend who ran Virgin Records. “He put it above his desk and when we were trying to think of a name for a compilation series of all the greatest hits, we looked at it. It turned out to be the biggest hit series in history, all because I was trying to woo a girl.”