‘Former estate agents’: the strange life of the Barclay twins
by Steven Morris from World news | The Guardian on (#6C3J4)
Losing Telegraph newspapers will not turn remaining twin Frederick Barclay into a pauper, but it's a bitter end to brothers' empire-building
From humble beginnings growing up in a west London house so close to the railway line the window frames rattled when a train passed, the Barclay twins, Frederick and David, became an extraordinary, energetic and eccentric power couple.
They built an empire of glitzy hotels and made many millions in shipping and retail before plunging into the world of newspapers but - largely - eschewed the trappings of life in the London fast lane to live in strange isolation in a sprawling mansion on a small rocky island just off the French coast.
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