Sir Michael Bishop joined British Midland Airways in 1965 and worked his way up from baggage handler to general manager before leading a successful management buyout in 1978. He has been chairman ever since and renamed the company bmi in 2003. It is now the UK’s second largest full-service scheduled airline. An aviation enthusiast who enjoys a scrap, he was given the memorable sobriquet “a cute little brute” by the late Lord King, then chairman of BA. A bachelor with no close family, he once announced that he would leave all his money, estimated at £180 million, to a charitable trust. He is currently on holiday in Australia where he has been since just after Christmas. He was knighted in 1991. Sir Michael Bishop is 64 today.
RGT
Robert Alston, High Commissioner to New Zealand, 1994-98, 68; Michael Apted, film director, 65; John Hayes, chairman, disciplinary appeals committee, Chartered Institute of Public Finance Accountants, 61; the Rev Donald Hilton, former Moderator of the General Assembly of the United Reformed Church, 74; the Very Rev Jeffrey John, Dean of St Albans, 1997-2004, 53; Peter Middleton, chairman of the Football League, 1998-2000, 66; Greg Norman, golfer, 51; Nicholas Owen, broadcaster, 59; Leontyne Price, soprano, 79; Sir Idwal Pugh, Permanent Secretary of the Welsh Office, 1969-71, 88; Gail Rebuck, chief executive, Random House Group Publishers, 54; Lord Justice Rose, a Lord Justice of Appeal, 69.