Even now, Ruth Trinder doesn't understand why, when you go to a bank and ask for a sum of money, they always give you less. It was something she encountered on buying her first and second nursing homes in London. But as the profits from those began to roll in, she found that asking the bank manager for loans was getting easier.

Borrowing £15,000 from NatWest for her third care home in Putney, she persuaded them by saying: "It's only money! You're only keeping it in the bank. And we're going to be paying you interest. You might as well let us have it," she remembers, laughing.

"I thought, if you're not cheeky, you're not going to get anything. And I was cheeky. But, to tell you the truth, when I went to see the bank manager, my knees used to just tremble." By 1992, this tremble would turn into a full blown shake.

Just ten years before, she was excited about the Putney purchase, her first fully fledged nursing home with 33 beds. And Ruth had a vision. Her mother-in-law had died in a nursing home in Brighton and she was distressed by the horrific care there. "I thought no one should die like that, you must die with dignity," she says. So she and her husband began visiting five star hotels to see how things were done. They then constructed the nursing home around that ethos.

Her fourth property, also a nursing home, bought in 1984, was an extension of this vision. With 30 bedrooms, they inserted an ensuite or toilet in each. Staff were kitted out in different uniforms for different parts of the business. When it was opened in 1985 by Edward Heath, Ruth remembers one of her staff saying 'It's like working in Hollywood'.

"I thought, if you're not cheeky, you're not going to get anything from the bank. And I was cheeky. But when I went to see the bank manager, my knees used to just tremble"

Properties five and six (also nursing homes) came soon after – one, a huge building surrounded by 12 acres of garden and another with 65 bedrooms in Kingston. Ruth was starting to worry. "I told Bill I thought we were getting very highly geared," she admits. But their borrowing was just 50 per cent, and they were a good team. Bill was a property developer who understood the industry and Ruth the business woman who understood nursing homes. So they continued building their empire which before long also included a hotel in Richmond.

It was the purchase of a private house in Kingston in 1990, bought at the height of the property market, which would be their last purchase. Within a year, the market had crashed, and within two, Bill had died and Britain was in recession. Ruth owed £4.5m to the bank. "It wasn't an easy time. I look back now and don't know how I did it. I was grieving and trying to sort out my daughter's schooling, and then had this huge business burden."

As well as having to sell one property and give the proceeds directly to the bank, there were suddenly other people approaching her about getting involved in the business. "I didn't even know that anybody had been watching our company. I thought we were just doing our own thing but a lot of people had been interested and wanted to invest."

One equity house offered a £1.4m cash injection to keep everything afloat, but was demanding 60 per cent of the business. Another private investor offered £1.6m for 50 per cent. Though her original response was 'over my dead body', she eventually went with the second offer and therein began their joint venture.

That was over 15 years ago now and though she considered selling her half of the business two years ago, it wasn't to be. Then a shock development came last year when her partner agreed to sell and then everything went through by September.

"I look back now and don't know how I did it. I was grieving and trying to sort out my daughter's schooling, and then had this huge business burden."

She visited one of the homes before the sale and says it was a sad day. The visionary, thriving business she'd built up had faded away into a rundown nursing home – the very thing she abhors. "To see what it came to and hear staff tell me what it was like, it made me so sad. If you ever enter a care home and it's not a good one, it smells of urine. And I made sure there was no such thing in my businesses. Now I'm told it smells."

The upside is that Ruth gets to enjoy a new chapter in her life. She still has the Bingham hotel in Richmond which she revamped last year, a home in Kenya which she rents out and has plans to build a luxury safari lodge for tourists, along with either a school or hospital for locals, when everything is safer there in the near future.

She's also spent some time reminiscing at Coutts. Although she was approached by other private banks when her business was sold, it was Coutts that she wanted. Her lawyers put a call in and soon Edward Priday was chosen as her banker.

"Edward has been out to see me a couple of times and he invited me to lunch recently at 440 Strand. I asked about the Statement department and the old cafeteria, and the famous Chinese wallpaper in the Directors dining room. It had changed but it was also the same. I wanted to bank with Coutts because I know their ethos; I have the same one myself. And I don't think either of us has changed that much over time."

By Barbara Walshe