Obituary: Richard Bosworth, businessman

Richard Bosworth, who has died at 73, was a Harrogate businessman who as a teenage musician in the early 1960s was the drummer in a band that supported The Beatles.

He went on to become a significant figure in the international business world, holding senior roles at Kenco, Cadbury and Rank Hovis McDougall, as well as taking on charity and development projects closer to home.

It was at Harrogate’s Royal Hall in March 1963, as a 13-year-old, that he shared a stage with The Beatles. Derek Arnold, a Harrogate record shop owner, had put together a bill which the Beatles headlined a few days after the end of their national tour supporting Helen Shapiro. Arnold’s bill promised as supporting attractions two of “Harrogate’s most popular groups – Barry Corbett and his Mustangs, and Chinchillas and the Apaches”. The event, which preceded the release of The Beatles’ first album, was promoted as “dancing for teens and twenties”.

But it turned out not to be a lasting career for Mr Bosworth, who abandoned the stage for agricultural college, where he took a part-time job selling sacks of chicken manure door to door for £1 each.

He went on to join the loss-making Eastern Counties Farmers as a troubleshooter and turned it into a profitable enterprise within nine months, before moving in 1975 to South Africa, where he founded the country’s first business development consultancy.

Back home, he was part of Tec International and co-founded the Wealth Enhancement Forum and recently the What If Forums, a group dedicated to the development of business leaders and entrepreneurs.

A member of Harrogate Brigantes Rotary, he was also part of a charity cycling group which went to the Balkans, and cycled more than 2,000 miles down the west coast of North America from Vancouver to Tijuana.

He is survived by his wife, Constance, whom he married 50 years ago, and by daughters Louise and Suzie and his grandchildren.