BEING flash is not on Steve Pankhurst's agenda. True, his company, the website FriendsReunited has made him a millionaire, at least on paper, several times over. Also true, he recently bought a new house. But he is at pains to point out he switched one semi in Barnet for another slightly bigger semi. And how do you drive two children around in a sports car? (You don't, you drive a Honda and a Golf.)

Sitting in Covent Garden, drinking coffee, talking curries, it wouldn't automatically occur that the 37-year-old was gearing up to judge the Guardian's Student Media Award of the Year at the Ivy. It's really not his thing. He only accepted because of who was on the judging panel - namely Jonathan Ross.

"Actually, Jonathan was very quiet and didn't say much. I ended up talking to football pundit Gabby Logan instead."

Steve is good at talking, especially to Danny Baker, and Richard and Judy (twice) when his site was 'daytime fodder'.

FriendsReunited catapults your past into your present by putting you in touch via the Internet with those friends/teachers/work colleagues that you loved/argued or bonded with decades ago.

You click on to www.friendsreunited.co.uk, register for free, locate your school and look up names you had all but forgotten. If you want to email them, you pay a flat rate £7.50 membership fee to have your messages passed on.

The site was set up in the front bedroom of his old house in the summer of 2000. "Why does the media insist in saying it was a back bedroom?!" Together with wife Julie, the couple poured endless hours into what was initially a hobby until a year later when both realised its worldwide potential.

"First year growth was uncontrollable in 2001. The end of that year was a watershed - we were in the top 10 companies in terms of hits. By then we were exhausted.

"We weren't into running companies and suddenly it was a monster. We realised we were missing a lot of opportunities - things we enjoyed - and we weren't very good at making decisions - we were ideas people."

After a call from the Sunday Times which said they'd heard Steve was floating the company - "I said no!" - Steve and Julie agreed they needed to take a back seat.

"Estimated prices ranged from £20-£25 million. It went mad. By the end of one week, the price was £35 million. It was a huge media circus with journalists camped outside. I kept asking myself, we're an internet company - where's the interest?"

In March this year, they brought in a management team consisting of Financial Times website managing director Michael Murphy, and Financial Times marketing director Tim Ward, as well as Rob Mogford, an adviser from BDO.

"They run the day to day business. It's now a lot more professional but we retain control. We're still involved and do the PR, but can focus more on new ideas and new content. Life is a lot, lot better - it has released time - we can now take half a day off to take the kids out."

It also allowed Steve the chance as a Barnet and Tottenham supporter to win an auction bid to become a squad player for a day in a match against Arsenal at Barnet in July 2003.

"It was such a great day and I got the biggest cheer when I went up which was very strange. There was lots of media interest, although it ended in a really boring one-all draw and I never touched the ball."

Inspiration
Whether his inspiration for FriendsReunited came from Imperial College is debatable. "At 18, I wanted a maths degree and as a Londoner, went to a London college, as all my friends were going there.

"My memories are of pubs, snooker and pool - that was all we did beside going to lectures. It wasn't a great social life; I was a Southside regular who went to the gym a lot. There were a lot of old 70s bands around. Mud played and I remember the Cocteau Twins were very good.

"We spent one whole term learning about the forces in a rod of metal as you twist it. There were four people on that course and half the time the lecturer didn't turn up. We used to sit in the back of lectures doing Melody Maker and NME crosswords.

"The male/female ratio was not too grand either - 90 per cent were men and a couple of those looked like Einstein - they lived and breathed maths."

It's a bit of a shock to find that a man whose life could have been very different without computers, actually has a loathing of them.

"I hated computers at College. We worked in the old computer wing near the Science Museum. I had compulsory courses in my second and third years and in those days, computers were so antiquated I couldn't stand it! I always chose courses that took the least amount of time.

"Either you're a computer nerd or you're doing it as a job. Even to this day, computers annoy me immensely."

Curse
Opening up memories of decades past has a price. A Channel 5 television programme, The Curse of FriendsReunited, laid the blame for memories gone bad at the feet of the website.

"It was a complete hatchet job and awful journalism. They ran an advert asking people if their lives had been blighted by the site.

"We received 35 questions about people whose lives had been ruined and appeared briefly on the programme. We are responsible for putting people back in touch, not what they do after it."

The success of the site is undeniable and is reflected in the constant coverage. It has appeared in questions on the television programme 15-1 and featured on Have I Got News for You.

Steve and Julie have launched FriendsReunited dating, and a book has been published entitled FriendsReunited: Remarkable Real Life Stories From The Nation's Favourite Website.

Genes Connected, which gets a quarter of a million hits a day, has been developed by Steve and his brother, Neil. An alumnus section, a section for the armed forces, and a site which helps you find old neighbours you've lost touch with, have been launched as part of FriendsReunited.

Launching on Sky television as an interactive site where people can register through their TVs, FriendsReunited is clearly a project to run and run.

"Finding out what people are doing has always been the hook. Originally, it was about your best friends from primary and secondary school becoming a new set of mates. Now it can be a general contact system - you can arrange anything for anybody, anywhere."

One thing Steve's not too keen on is retaking his Imperial maths exam, despite his website offering people the chance to relive their school and College experiences with self-imposed resits.

"I'm not intuitive and I struggled to get a 2:1. It was all down to revising theories and having a good memory," he insists.

Ailing maths students with a penchant for business should take note...