Early life and automotives Fishwick was born in March 1971. He grew up in a poor family on John Street in
Nelson, Lancashire, and attended
Edge End High School, both of which were later demolished. He left school aged sixteen with no qualifications, and took a
Youth Training Scheme course at a construction site for £27.50 per week () plus overtime, where he
pebbledashed buildings. While there, he was motivated by an incident in which he discovered after ordering a
chip butty that he was threepence short, prompting the cashier to bin a handful of already salted and vinegared chips. His first part-exchange was a heavily scratched
Vauxhall Cavalier with flat tyres, which he bought for £70, advertised in the local paper for £100 and sold for £97. which had sites in
Colne,
Birmingham, and
Stockport. He later became the biggest minibus supplier in Britain. Between 2004 and 2017, the firm sponsored
Burnley F.C., during which time the club's
Turf Moor stadium's Cricket Field Stand was named the David Fishwick Stand. In 2005, having bought a helicopter for his own use and finding that others were asking if they could borrow it, Fishwick opened a helicopter business, David Fishwick Helicopters Ltd, which provided
charter flights.
Bank of Dave and Loan Ranger During the
2008 financial crisis, Fishwick found that big banks had stopped lending his customers money, posing an existential threat to his business. He later opened Burnley Savings and Loans in September 2011 in Keirby Walk in the town centre using a
peer-to-peer crowdfunding model, with "Bank on Dave" emblazoned on the front of the shop as an advertising slogan. The series was released at the same time as
Bank of Dave: How I Took on the Banks, a book. Reviewing the second episode, Alex Hardy of
The Times described the show as "some of the most joyous TV seen this year" and opined that Fishwick "could have been one of the best comedy characters of 2012". A subsequent episode,
Bank of Dave: Fighting the Fat Cats, was broadcast in February 2013, and won an award for the Best Feature/Factual Entertainment Programme at the
2013 British Academy Scotland Awards. In mid-2020, Fishwick was approached by screenwriter Piers Ashworth, who was interested in making a film about his bank's story. He granted permission for this on the condition that it was shot in Burnley, where many of the events took place. Produced by Piers Tempest of Tempo Productions and
Matt Williams and Karl Hall of Future Artists Entertainment, In June 2024,
Jason Manford stated that he was in talks to star in a musical version of
Bank of Dave, with Fishwick later stating that the musical had been suggested by Williams. In 2014, after young people came to him after accumulating debt engaging with
payday loan firms, he fronted
Dave: Loan Ranger, in which he investigated the industry. Originally intended for autumn 2013, the show was delayed until January 2014 for legal reasons. Upon broadcast, the show won Best Current Affairs Programme at the
2014 British Academy Scotland Awards. A sequel to
Bank of Dave,
Bank of Dave 2: The Loan Ranger, was announced that April, was released on 10 January 2025, and was loosely based on his experiences with the industry.
Other media appearances In 2013, Fishwick appeared on
The Secret Millions, in which he and a group of teenagers who had suffered challenging upbringings such as homelessness or addiction attempted to open a
employment agency. That May, alongside
Loan Ranger,
Channel 4 announced
Fishwick Out of Water, a six-part series intended for 2014 in which Fishwick would be dropped blindfolded into a random UK town with a pound and challenged to make a fortune; this did not make it to broadcast. In 2015, he presented
Can Property Pay Your Wages, in which he advised members of the public on how to make money through property, and then the consumer series
Shoppers Guide to Saving Money, which he co-presented with
Kate Quilton. In 2017, he appeared in ''Dave's Guide to Spending'', a documentary in which he explored
supply-chain costs and launched a brand of bottled water. All three of these aired on Channel 4, with Fishwick working with
Warner Bros. on the last of these. In July 2017, it was announced that Fishwick would film a six-part series for Channel 4 called
How to Get Rich Quick. Upon broadcast in July 2018, Peter Crawley of
The Irish Times wrote that the show "encourages people of modest means to pursue equally modest dreams in the very modest hopes, several weeks of hard work later, of doubling their modest investments." In 2020, Fishwick appeared on a week of episodes of
Your Money And Your Life, a
BBC One daytime consumer show presented by
Matt Allwright and
Kym Marsh. He declined invitations to appear on the
2023 series of
''I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! and the
2024 series of
Strictly Come Dancing'', both times due to work commitments. ==Notes==