How a one-arm bandit mechanic became Sir Richard Branson's business partner

Later a passion for hot-air balloon led to an enduring friendship and business partnership with Sir Richard Branson.

More recently, the charity he launched has raised millions for amputees and also brought him into contact with Brad Pitt, who is a patron, and the late Nelson Mandela and Sir Richard Attenborough, who were also big supporters.

He should be more famous than he is. Certainly his is a life worth committing to print but writing his life story is not something the restless 68-year-old had ever considered doing. Until now, that is.

Mike Kendrick's super-active lifestyle was brought to a shuddering halt earlier this year with the news that he had two forms of cancer – lymphoma and prostate cancer.

"So I took some time off and wrote the book," he says casually of the first part of his autobiography, Thursday's Child, which has just been published.

"It's been a bit of a journey. I felt like the unluckiest man in the world for a while, with not one but two cancers.

"The worst was the lymphoma. Prostate cancer is not so unusual for a man of my age, and if you catch it early the prognosis is good. The lymphoma was different.

"But you just accept it and get on with it. I've had all the treatment now. I've just finished my radiotherapy and I'll get to find out the results in February. As my Facebook status says, as far as I'm concerned, it's Mike 2 Cancer 0."

The book is named after the first balloon he bought. He found out much later that he, too, was a Thursday's child – someone, according to the popular nursery rhyme, who has far to go. Enough said.

The father-of-three, and now a doting grandfather, remembers the first time he saw the hot-air balloon that changed his life. He was on the M5, on his way to a client meeting in Stoke-on-Trent, when the traffic halted as the balloon – a rare sight in the 1970s – drifted majestically into view 100ft above them. Queues formed, drivers were captivated.

At the end of his meeting that afternoon, his client asked him to come up with some branding ideas for an exhibition the firm was putting on at the Isle of Man TT races.

Mike suggested they put the company name on 'one of those new hot air balloon things' as they clearly stopped traffic.

Not long afterwards he bought the balloon he had seen floating over the M5. Even better, Dudley Zoo, another of his clients, stumped up the cash, and were among the first to take advantage of this new form of advertising.

When he first started, ballooning was an elitist sport practised by the Pimms-drinking, welly-wearing set. Not a natural environment then for an ale-swilling, working-class Black Countryman.

Mike turned up for his first balloon flight in a mohair suit and fashionable leather shoes. It ended messily when they crash-landed in a farmer's field, the basket being dragged along on its side for some distance, covering him from head to toe in cow manure.

But he was not put off. "There was something about being in a laundry basket dangling from a bag of hot air hundreds of feet up that appealed to me."

There are a lot of laughs in the book. Particularly funny are his observations of his Black Country mates, and their ways and witticisms. He also has a nice line in self-deprecating humour.

Talking about how he had to overcome a desperate fear of heights in order to become a balloon pilot, he describes how he embarrassed his children at the top of the Eiffel Tower when he plastered himself against a wall, paralysed by vertigo. More recently, he walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge at his wife' Anne's insistence but had to hold the hand of the male guide the entire way.

His early exploits in ballooning were all carried out with the help of his mates, a comical lot who acted as ground crew in return for a trip in the basket.

It is sobering to think that he may not have taken up hot-air ballooning if the family business had not gone spectacularly bump at the height of its success.

In the early days the family was relatively poor. Mike was born in a prefab in Lincoln Green, Bushbury, a supposedly temporary post-war home that is still there today, he is able to tell you.

Despite their circumstances, his father Vic was 'a trier'. He would take them to the seaside for two or three days when funds would allow, always to Rhyl in north Wales.

Mike recounts the excitement of climbing into their very old Austin 7 at five o'clock one morning with his elder sister Viki to begin a mini-break followed by the crushing disappointment when the suspension went as they drove along the prom and their B&B money had to be spent instead on repairing the engine, forcing them to return home later that day.

But the family finances improved after Vic, who supplemented his wages from his aircraft factory job by playing piano in pubs for 10 shillings a night, branched out into the world of showbusiness, launching the Midland Entertainment Agency which supplied one-arm bandits and pinball machines to working men's clubs,eventually booking acts for clients like the Dudley Hippodrome.

When Mike left school, he joined the company as a trainee one-arm bandit mechanic. The family moved to a bungalow, his dad bought a Bentley, and Mike started managing dance venues, booking bands like the Slade in their pre-famous days. The line-up for his first show at The Dudley Hippodrome included Jerry Dorsey(now Engelbert Humperdinck), Pinkerton's Assorted Colours, the Kinks and the Walker Brothers.

He bought the entire acts for one night, two shows, for £1,000. The 1,700-seat auditorium was sold out for both performances.

To generate extra income he would print three times the number of programmes needed with a lucky number on the back, entitling the winner to go backstage to meet the stars, and the heating would be turned up to promote drinks' sales. He generally made a £850 profit a night, a huge amount of money in those days.

It was the swinging sixties and Mike frequented all the top UK clubs. He attended Top of the Pops when the Beatles were performing, mixing socially with all the headliners of the era. He describes taking full advantage of all the perks on offer. He was still only 17.

But the high life ended abruptly when the business started to decline with the advent of television. They tried bingo, panto and other forms of entertainment to bring the punters back but when prime minister Harold Wilson restructured the corporate and personal tax laws, Vic faced a tax bill of £70,000. He paid the money, refusing to file for bankruptcy for fear of the shame it would bring. He was then taxed on undeclared money, also incurring penalties, which meant he had to fork out another £35,000.

"That ruined him," says Mike. "Everything had to go, the boats, the cars, the house, the jobs, including mine."

But the teenage entrepreneur talked his way into an advertising agency job in Birmingham and went on to lead its public relations division. From there it was short step to starting his own company

He was working in public relations when his love affair with hot-air ballooning began, and he expertly combined the two to launch his company, Lighter than Air.

It was through this business that he met and became friends with Sir Richard Branson, going on to mastermind the Virgin Group founder's round-the-world balloon attempts.

Together with record-breaking balloonist Per Lindstrand, from Oswestry, they pioneered early high-altitude balloon flights, at one time flying in an open basket to 45,000ft.

With Branson, he formed the Telford-based Virgin Airship and Balloon Company which became the largest aerial advertising company in the world, running balloons for big-name firms such as Tesco, Budweiser, Bic, and Lloyds TSB.

Over the years, they came up with countless PR stunts, including making a balloon in the shape of a UFO, which consisted of a saucer shape with 3,000 lights round it and had the basket actually inside the balloon to make it look authentic.

"They closed Gatwick Airport. They treated it officially as a UFO," recalls Mike.

Another trip involved Ozzy Osbourne and a Banks's balloon in the shape of a pint of beer with a barrel-shaped basket. The Prince of Darkness, who lived locally in the Staffordshire village of Ranton, appeared more interested in the beer supply on board than listening to safety instructions and Mike has since heard he has no recall of the flight. "Apparently he thinks it was some substance-enhanced hallucination, or dream."

Mike's fun-loving instinct is still there, as is his love for his Black Country roots. He may live in a posh house in Bridgnorth now but he drinks and socialises in Wolverhampton 'all the time', and can recommend a couple of Indian restaurants in the town if you need a steer. He has a particular fondness for Lower Gornal, he says.

There is a lot more to tell. He went on to build a fleet of 19 airships operating in 20 countries. But more of that, and his charity, the Mineseeker Foundation, in the second part of his autobiography, currently in progress.

Richard Branson said of the book 'I laughed till I cried.' In a fulsome tribute to his friend in the foreward, he writes: "Mike has always been able to tell funny stories and can keep an audience roaring with laughter. He has a naughty sense of humour and does not shirk at delivering a rude and inappropriate punchline even in the most salubrious of circles."

From any angle, that's not a bad recommendation.