Tragic tycoon seeks solace with Aids victims

She is the nurse who became Britain's richest businesswoman, turning a ?25,000 redundancy payment into a ?1 billion international empire.

When she left her council house and moved into a ?3 million castle, Stagecoach boss Ann Gloag had it all. But two years ago her life was devastated when her 28-year-old son, Jonathan, hanged himself in a forest near her home. Bewildered and distraught, Gloag disappeared from public life and quit the company she founded.

Now she is going back to her roots. She is swapping her Highland estate for a hospital in one of the world's poorest countries where she will treat Aids and cancer patients.

Ann Gloag, 58, arrived yesterday in Benin to start working for Mercy Ships, a charity that provides ship-based hospitals offering free medical and dental care to some of the world's poorest people. She decided to take the unpaid job on the 12,000-tonne SS Anastasis, moored off Cotonou, after a visit to West Africa last year.

Friends say she wants to 'start a new chapter' after 20 gruelling years which made her Britain's second-richest woman - only the Queen is wealthier - but which have cost her her marriage and, some say, the life of her son.

'She is still deeply traumatised by Jonathan's death, but getting back to work is her way of getting on with life,' one said. 'It is her way, perhaps, of acknowledging what has happened and of starting again and showing that some benefit can come out of it all.'

As she prepared to treat her first patient since she quit her job as a theatre nurse in Bridge of Earn hospital, near Perth, 20 years ago, Gloag said: 'I've been very fortunate in many ways. I enjoyed my years as a nurse. I enjoyed my years in business. Maybe if I can do something for these charities for a few years, it wouldn't be a bad idea.'

She has donated ?4m of her fortune to buy a new hospital ship, the African Mercy, moored at Newcastle upon Tyne. She wants to raise ?15m to refit and equip the ship. 'For me it's quite a big challenge to buy this ship and see the conversion through. I think I'll get a real buzz the day they launch it.'

It is more than a quarter of a century since Gloag began her nursing career at Glasgow's Royal Hospital for Sick Children. Her qualifications are now out of date, so she will spend this week carrying out basic duties, such as sterilising equipment or feeding undernourished babies so they are strong enough for surgery.

Conditions on the boat could not be more different from life in 24-bedroom Beaufort Castle, the baronial seat of the Clan Fraser, which Gloag bought 10 years ago. Temperatures can reach 35C, with near 100 per cent humidity. Food and water on board are strictly rationed.

During the day Gloag will treat Aids and cancer victims. Chronic eye infections, cataracts and cleft lips and palates are common. The ship has four operating theatres and beds for 100 patients. At night she will sleep in a bunk in quarters that also hold 400 doctors, nurses and crew. 'I am a terrible sailor, but I should be OK while the boat is moored,' she said.

Her return to the wards is the latest chapter in the remarkable life of a woman born in poverty in Perth. She left Perth High School with no qualifications, but enrolled as a trainee nurse and rose to become a sister. She quit her job in 1980 and used her bus driver father's ?25,000 redundancy money to set up Stagecoach with her brother, Brian Souter.

They exploited Tory legislation deregulating the bus industry to undercut rivals. As Stagecoach began expanding rapidly, she let nothing stand in her way - not even her husband. Robin Gloag was on the Stagecoach board when the company was set up, but she and Souter voted him off after repeated clashes. The couple later divorced.

Gloag's ruthlessness earned her a ?200m personal fortune which she spent lavishly. She holidayed with Richard Branson on his Caribbean island and drank Bollinger with Rupert Murdoch at his Christmas parties. She bought her yellow Bentley - registration 1Ann - from the Princess Royal.

But the good life came to a tragic end on the night of 18 September 1999 when her son left his Perthshire home, walked a few miles towards his mother's home, tied a rope to a tree and hanged himself. The suicide of a young man with a wife, three sons and the prospect of a vast inheritance all but destroyed Gloag. As she put it on the wreath of white lilies she laid at his funeral: 'From your heartbroken mum, I loved you so much. Till the day dawns and the shadows flee away.'

Afterwards she shunned all publicity. Friends say she was haunted by the thought that she could have prevented his death. 'She knew her son believed he could not live up to her success and she knew he had been badly affected by the divorce,' one said. 'She had all that money at her disposal, and was able to help complete strangers with her charitable instincts, but not Jonathan.

'She is a driven woman. Even when her business tactics were being criticised, she was convinced she had done no wrong. But after Jonathan's death I think she felt - for the first time - as if she might have made a terrible mistake.'

Last year she announced that she had had enough of big business and was quitting as executive director of Stagecoach. She was seen only a few times in public before she announced last week that she was going to Africa.

The Anastasis will remain off the coast of Benin until May. During that time doctors hope to carry out more than 1,000 operations and provide dental treatment for 3,000 people.
john.arlidge@observer.co.uk