‘I found out things I wished I hadn't!'

Multimillionaire Alfie Best on donning a disguise to see what’s really going on in his business…

- Alfie Best, REBECCA FLETCHER

UNDERCOVER BIG BOSS

NEW THURSDAY / ITV / 9PM / EP 1 of 4 / FACTUAL

Alfie Best thought his days of unblocking smelly drains were over.

As the owner of 91 UK mobile-home parks and worth over £341m, he’s more into driving his £1.6m Bugatti sports car than rolling up his sleeves and getting his hands dirty.

That is until he was asked to take part in ITV’s new Undercover Big Boss series – a rebooted version of the 2009-14 C4 show, which sees bosses don a disguise to work on their own shop floors and see what really goes on behind closed doors.

‘I’ll be honest, I was nervous about doing it,’ says Alfie, who kicks off the series as chairman of Wyldecrest Parks, the UK’s largest residential park and holiday home operator. ‘But going undercover would allow me to see stuff I couldn’t see as Alfie “The Boss”. It was eye-opening.’

Here, Alfie – who recently featured on C4 documentary Kathy Burke: Money Talks – reveals the big emotions, big rewards and big shocks in store as he joined the people who make his business tick…

What did you think when you were asked to go undercover?

I was unsure. I try to run a business based on trust so would my employees think I was trying to trick them? I wasn’t. My goal was to identify problems in the business and put them right.

How did you get into the mobile home park business?

I’m a Romany gypsy. I was born and bred in a caravan, so who better to buy a caravan from than someone who eats and slept in one for much of their life?