I left school at 16 with four O-levels and went on to some random YTS scheme. I can hardly remember what it was for. My mum calls the years between 16 and 18 my doss years. I was just a teenage oik floating about not doing much. Playing Sega Megadrive, drinking two-litre cider bottles with my mates in the park. I did join a youth theatre in Cheltenham and I thoroughly enjoyed that.
I’ve always been comfortable in my own skin, I have never had a problem being me. So that was fun, and the group was full of lovely girls from Cheltenham Ladies College. I ended up being in a few kids’ shows, some episodes of London’s Burning, the Christmas special Miss Marple. I liked the laugh, the camaraderie, but actually I hated acting.
I was always a confident kid. And relatively polite. I didn’t give my mum much trouble, only the odd night when the police would bring us home after they caught us drinking cider. I wasn’t very teenagey or angsty. I didn’t know where I was going to go or how things would end up but I never worried about the future. I felt pretty sure it would all work out. I still feel like that now – what’s the worst that can happen?
My mum is the greatest thing ever.
My parents divorced when I was 11 but even before that I don’t have many memories of us all being together. It was really just my mum, my brother and me. I didn’t know anything else so I didn’t miss anything or feel any resentment about being the oldest man in the family. My mum is the greatest thing ever. I look back now and realise how hard it must have been for her being a single mum in the Eighties, bringing up two boys. It must have been so difficult, though I didn’t realise at the time.
And I didn’t notice we had no money – we still did loads of fun things, we were involved in things. And where I grew up, we were all in the same boat, no one had money. We still have a very close relationship now and I get her involved when I can in all the fun things we do on the show.
It's crunch time ???????????????? Get your kids into the kitchen to help take down the carrots… My tasty veggie bolognaise is packed with veg, great for kids to practice their chopping skills!
Recipe: https://t.co/yvtPkdKdG8 #tomsfreshstart #EatThemToDefeatThem #Carrots @VegPowerUK pic.twitter.com/ETpt3BBjHC
— Tom Kerridge (@ChefTomKerridge) February 6, 2019