Michael Grylls

Sir William Michael John Grylls (21 February 1934 – 7 February 2001) was a British Conservative politician. He was implicated in the cash-for-questions affair, a political scandal of the 1990s. He was the father of adventurer and the Scout Association’s Chief Scout Bear Grylls. Education and early career Grylls was born in Folkestone, Kent, the son of Brigadier William Edward Harvey Grylls , of the 15th/19th The King's Royal Hussars, and Rachel Elizabeth, daughter of Brigadier General Kempster Kenmure Knapp and a cousin of the journalist and Conservative politician Bill Deedes. The Grylls family owned and lived at Winterbourne Zelston House, Blandford, Dorset; the family can be traced back to 17th century Cornwall. He was educated at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. His eyesight was not good enough for the Navy, so he joined the Royal Marines, and saw active service, leaving in 1955, and studying Spanish at the University of Madrid. He turned his hand to business, setting up a wine importing firm called the 'Costa Brava Company'. His description of some of his products as "Spanish champagne" provoked the ire of both the makers of genuine champagne and its London importers; he was unsuccessfully prosecuted for trading under a false description, but they won a civil action against him for "passing off", i.e. misrepresenting his goods by using someone else's trademark. From 1959 he served as a councillor on St. Pancras Borough Council, and was elected to the Greater London Council for Westminster and the City of London from 1967 to 1970.