In the Hotseat this month: Nigel Chapman, Executive Chairman, Kingfisher Group.

A regular feature for the Heavenly Hymnsheet, our monthly email newsletter. Each month we invite a guest to share their answers to ten questions on what makes them tick.
 

1. Where and when were you happiest?

London 1981, my future wife had just hinted she might marry me, and I whisked her off to Asprey before she could change her mind!
 

2. What do you value most in other people?

I am in the hospitality business and we value people with real heart and soul; and that applies to life, too.
 

3. What is the best piece of advice you have ever been given?

In the hotel business ‘you make your money going in and you make your money going out’ – my former chairman and a very seasoned hotel entrepreneur.
 

4. What did you dream of being when you were young?

Owning and running my own business – although I started out in industry and thought it would be a factory. I am glad I ended up in hotels though.
 

5. What was the last thing that made you laugh out loud?

Pretty much anything Boris Johnson ever said.
 

6. What keeps you awake at night?

Nothing. My wife complains that I sleep too soundly – I tell her that’s nine years at boarding school, sharing a room with a bunch of snoring boys!
 

7. What is your favourite word?

Thank you – it is often absent though, these days.
 

8. Which talent are you most envious of?

The ability to play music – at school there was loads of opportunities, but the sporty boys turned their noses up and I never got back to it, although it remains on my bucket list.
 

9. Which famous painting would you choose to have in your home?

Hard one as there are so many, but I’d find it hard to resist an LS Lowry.
 

10. What is your proudest moment?

Even harder – so I am cheating by saying seeing my wife, badly hung over after her hen do, with a flower behind her ear at our wedding at Marylebone Registry Office and the birth of each of our five children.