A BUSINESSMAN who left school with no qualifications built up a worldwide aquarium company, starting from just a bucket and a sponge.

Ben Woodward started out aged 16, cycling around Brighton installing and maintaining aquari- ums.

As a plucky teenager he was laughed out of Queens Hotel in Brighton after managers though he was too young.

But despite poor exam results his practical experience got him a place at college and then university.

Ben’s Ditchling company Univer- sal Aquaculture has gone on to ren- ovate some of the most prestigious water features in Sussex and worked with American Express, the NHS, RBS and The National trust.

He has worked in Brazil, Syria Nigeria and Bangladesh, and is responsible for importing eight in ten UK jellyfish.

But Ben believes the hard-work ethic is missing from some of today’s younger generation.

He said: “I am always shocked by the lack of get up and go by the majority of young people I come across.

“I think there is going to be a void in a decade or so where there is a lack of skilled British people.

“The jobs will inevitably get filled with foreign workers and the same people who failed to learn valuable skills in their youth will be the same people complaining about ‘foreign- ers taking our jobs’.”

During his university studies Ben started a fish farm in Brazil to export fish back to England – but was struck by lightning amid a trop- ical storm, putting an end to his foot- balling aspirations.

Also a musician, Ben became a minor celebrity in South America after performing with superstar Marco de Brix – but claims he had to endure being robbed by police at gunpoint during the 2,000-mile jour-
ney to Paraguay.

As a musician Ben has sold more than 25,000 records and was number eight in the down- load charts for three weeks.

After finishing university Ben built a parrotfish farm in Syria – now destroyed in the civil war. He narrowly avoided meltdown when an oil-trading client tried to avoid paying a £30,000 bill.

Unable to afford lawyers, he rep- resented himself in court for three days and won the case.

He has also set up charity Futures in Fish, which builds fish farms in poor countries such as Bangladesh to feed poor schoolchildren.

Recently he has begun working on an aircraft hanger-sized public aquarium at a Nigerian theme park.