Early+life+and+education

**Early life and education**
 * Sir Richard Branson was born July 18, 1950 in Surrey, a London suburb, to Ted and Eve Branson.


 * Branson’s father, like his grandfather and great-grandfather, was a lawyer, and his mother was a former ballet instructor, glider pilot and flight attendant. This combination undoubtedly made an impression on her young son, who would grow up to head a music label and airline, and develop a love of hot air ballooning and sky diving.


 * Branson’s parents encouraged him to set high goals for himself; in fact, his mother used to tell her friends that her son would become prime minister of England one day.


 * Bored with school, Branson set his sights on business as an adolescent, growing Christmas trees and breeding birds. His father, however, wanted him to study for college entrance exams and sent him to an exclusive boarding school. At the age of 15, Branson introduced // Student, // a liberal current events and culture magazine that he edited and published while attending Stowe. Before long, luminaries such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Alice Walker, and Robert Graves were submitting writings, and Branson landed interviews with famous figures such as actress Vanessa Redgrave, writer James Baldwin, and psychoanalyst R. D. Laing. When Branson dropped out of school at age 16 to devote himself to the periodical, his headmaster reportedly told him, “Branson, I predict that you will either go to prison or become a millionaire.”


 * (Source: [|Encyclopedia] )