Bradford’s new business personality of the year gazed out of the window and his eyes lit up.

“People who knock Bradford just don’t get it. From here I can see the moors, a World Heritage Site, a canal and river and plenty of new development. It’s just great.”

We were in Andrew Mason’s office on the fifth floor of one of the striking new apartment blocks developed by the company he jointly owns, Newmason Properties in Shipley.

The £60 million Victoria Mills development has transformed the five-acre site previously occupied by worsted manufacturer Jerome, which closed in 1998.

It is now a mixture of restored 19th century mill buildings and futuristic apartments, most of which have been sold, let or are rented out to companies such as nearby Pace plc for use business visitors or contract staff.

Developing Victoria Mills meant a return to his roots for Andrew, who runs Newmason with business partner Alec Newsham. He was born in nearby Windhill 50 years ago, and two of his aunts once worked at Jerome’s.

Andrew grew up in Leeds, but Bradford never left him and he is now one of the city’s strongest advocates.

He left home at 16 with no qualifications. First stop was Oban in Scotland to work in hotels – and sow a few wild oats. Andrew then joined the North Sea oil rigs working as a roustabout, roughneck and assistant derrickman.

That’s where the long hair, now his trademark, first appeared.

After six months travelling round Europe, Andrew came home at the age of 22 and enrolled in A-level evening classes while working during the day for a pre-cast concrete building company doing a range of jobs and picking up skills.

“I’d had a great time but realised that I’d missed out on an education and wanted to get into to university,” he said.

Andrew realised his ambition and read politics and economics at Warwick, graduating in 1987, before spending a year in Greece teaching English.

Back in the UK, he rejoined the concrete firm. Helping it win big contracts, mainly from a Home Office prison-building programme, enabled the firm to rapidly expand, and Andrew became managing director in 1991.

Then followed the offer to join an organisation setting up social housing schemes in townships in South Africa and Latin America, which allowed Andrew to apply some of the knowledge acquired during his degree course.

Andrew survived being held at gunpoint on both continents, including in Soweto, near Johannesburg, once the hotbed of rebellion against the apartheid regime and home to Nelson Mandela.

“Even I couldn’t talk my way out of those situations. You just raise your hands and give in to survive.

“Working in those countries when many of them were run by autocratic regimes you had to be able to switch seamlessly between dealing with poverty-stricken people by day and donning a black tie and silk cummerbund to dine with and try to influence a government minister in the evening,” Andrew recalled.

When his wife, Joanna, became seriously ill, Andrew returned to run a business with construction interests. The closure of a loss-making site in Hull proved that this friendliest of characters also has a tough streak.

Andrew’s road to Newmason came about by accident. He first met Alec Newsham when looking to buy a pony for daughter Eliza who, with son Digby, completes the Mason family unit.

Andrew said: “We viewed the pony at Alec’s home near Ilkley and struck up a conversation about politics, economics and other matters. We just hit it off and ended up having a glass or two of wine, and the relationship continued when we went back to collect the pony.

“By then Joanna and I had bought, restored and sold a couple of houses, which involved hours of physical graft in the evening after work, at a time when it was easier to make some money on such schemes.”

Newmason Properties was established in November 2002 with the aim of bringing some of the Bradford district’s old buildings back to life. It first converted the former Byron Street School at Barkerend into luxury flats. The £7.5 million transformation was successful and the apartments sold like hot cakes.

Next came Victoria Mills. The multi-award-winning scheme close to the Saltaire World Heritage Site has become a landmark development, throwing Newmason and Andrew Mason firmly into the limelight.

And he’s thrived under the spotlight, becoming one of Bradford’s most recognisable figures. Equally at ease in all kinds of company, Andrew is definitely a “mover and shaker” and works tirelessly to promote the city he clearly loves.

I left Andrew feeling better about Bradford and life in general. He has that effect on you.