The Netmums Podcast - S1 Ep18: Tom Kerridge on being a different dad to your own dad

Episode Date: January 19, 2021

Listen as the nation’s most beloved chef tells Annie and Wendy all about his own childhood and how he’s doing it differently PLUS why we’ve all been grating cheese wrong. Yes, you heard it here first. Note: Tom's lullaby is by Stefan Holmes and is called "Schlaf, Kinderlein, Schlaf": https://open.spotify.com/track/5P7qWe2pX0ckIuJ0D4io2Y?si=IIPrJJOATfKYcbyvRkg2hA

You're listening to Sweat, Snot and Tears brought to you by Netmums. I'm Annie O'Leary and I'm Wendy Gollage and together we talk about all of this week's sweaty, snotty and tearful parenting moments with guests who are far more interesting than we are. Welcome to the latest episode of Sweat, Snot and Tears, you lovely lot. I am feeling teary because I am weary. I am overtired and emotional and I feel like the world's about to end. Wendy? Well, I feel like the world's worst mother because I trapped my five-year-old daughter's thumb in the front door.

Oh, ma'am, you are the world's worst mother. I know. I spent all day in A&E. She's fine. It's not broken, but I still feel bad. And is it a mess now? Yep. Poor child.

Tell me it's not the hand she writes with. It is the hand she writes with. It is the hand she writes with. Oh, Wendy, Wendy, Wendy. Of course it is. What are we going to do? I know what we're going to do. We're going to talk to today's lovely guest, Mr. Tom Kerridge, who might be the nicest man who ever graces our TV screen,

and he's going to make us feel loads better. Welcome, Tom. Hello. Don't worry, I have trapped my son's hand in a door before, so don't worry. You're not on your own there. Have you? And what was the outcome? Was his hand broken? No, he's such a unit, he broke the door.

Oh my goodness. Oh, bless. So what we tend to do, Tom, is we start our podcast by asking, has there been any sweat, any snot or any tears in your house today um it's not yes because my son's approaching five so like he's always picking his nose which is standard behavior lovely standard standard behavior like boogies for breakfast whatever but um tears today no not not yet i mean the day's yet early. Anything can happen. Yeah, we've still got to get through bedtime. Normally Friday is Friday, isn't it? Friday, yeah.

So it's the end of a school week. He will be exhausted. However, he does like to stay up a little bit later on a Friday. So he's trying to find that fine line between bedtime and not, isn't it? So if you miss past that last little bit, then that final half an hour of getting him into bed, there probably will be tears later on, I would have thought. It's like walking a tightrope, isn't it? That thing between being nice and letting them stay up a bit so they don't cry about that, but then also then not having an overtired child on your

hands, which is possibly the worst thing in the world. It is, but it's all part and parcel of it, isn't it? It makes it all good fun. it's all part and parcel of it and it makes it it makes it all good fun it does so which end of the day do you prefer as a parent are you a morning dad or a bedtime dad or both uh i try to i'm hardly ever there at the bit in the middle so some mornings i'm up and gone before he's up so he's actually a very early riser most mornings it's normally with a six in i mean some mornings is five five thirty five oh i can't do anything with a five in it i can't it's around about quarter past six is the average wake up time about quarter past six so some mornings i'm up and

gone before he's up um and then obviously there's a lot of nights when i'm not back in time for bedtime but i try at the minute i've actually actually been able to stay into school three times this week. Well, I guess lockdown has helped a little. It's got to have been positive for something. Does it mean you've been around a bit more? It does mean I've been around quite a bit more, which is great, particularly at the weekends, which has been obviously, I mean, I've still been working, but not quite in the same capacity,

slightly differently, a lot more in the terms of press and publicity media and talking about the current situation that we're all in yeah but for that point of view it does mean that I've been at home quite a bit more which has been which has been lovely now something I want to ask you is your son's name is AC which might be the coolest name on the planet um how did you come up with that it's awesome well it was uh obviously when naming children is quite a big thing and it suddenly becomes quite a huge responsibility they're going to have it for the rest of their life i know it's quite pressurized isn't it the picking of the name it is yeah and obviously when you wait before he was born you have kind of that

short list don't you of what it's going to be. And then we had a favorite of what it was. And then about a week before he was born, we suddenly swerved and went, no, no, no, we're not going to call him that. We need to find something else. And started looking through listed names and whatever else. And obviously it was our first son. So you just go, OK. So it's an old Anglo-Saxon name from number one for first which is obviously it's where ace comes from so ac so we were like i love that i love the idea of

it yeah that's where it comes from yeah that's where it comes i didn't know that there's a lady where i'm not going to say where actually because that will identify her but one of the women i know from school has got three sons called Jet, Ace and Flash. Nice. So can you go for the hat trick, Tom? That's what we expect. Three sons. No, I'll tell you what,

just the one is hard enough as it is. I mean, fair play to everybody who's got loads of kids, but honestly, I absolutely love him more than absolutely everything on earth. But, you know, those moments when it is very difficult, particularly when you have a busy lifestyle, I just try how people cope with loads of kids running around plus busy lives and jobs, I've no idea.

So you're not going to have a brood of 10 then? No, no, that's definitely not the plan. In fact, yeah, no, that probably couldn't be furthest away from what we're thinking about right now we've got 250 staff which are pretty much most of the time almost like children anyway so making sure that they're okay is the biggest thing well yeah i was going to ask you about that so i've been glued to your show about saving the nation's pubs tell us about it i mean it's been such a tearjerker I felt very emotional watching it I

mean we've been I know obviously the main priority with Covid is saving people's lives but saving people's livelihoods really bloody matters doesn't it oh it's huge you know and of course I think at first that first part of lockdown and that understanding of what's going on with this virus has been you know everyone's been terribly frightened and of course people's lives are the most important thing um and making sure that people are safe and well but i think the longer it goes on the more you recognize that it is something that we're having to live with at the minute the same as you know it's the new normal isn't it like this we've got to get our heads around living with it haven't we exactly. Until this vaccine comes out and it's trying to find the balance

between the two things. And right now it is beginning to stretch business and livelihoods and lives in other ways. You know, people are very nervous about their jobs. People are very, people are losing their jobs. People have lost, people are struggling with income. People are struggling with the mental health of being at home people are struggling with not going to the doctors not going to hospitals missing out on routine scans and checks and you know so so the health of the nation is beginning to be affected in many many other ways as well as you know economically where where many people face poverty. It is now beginning to have a huge adverse effect across the board on a national scale that isn't just about COVID-19.

So I think trying to find that balance is something that we all need to try and understand without too much in the way of extreme points of view. This is the problem with this day and age and the way that the media and social media works everything is everything is shady and extreme without it being balanced and it is those conversations and that understanding that everybody needs to get but yeah moving things forward and getting things open and getting things going i think is is vitally important to the survival of many industries not just just hospitality. How are you coping with the stress of having so many employees and businesses that can't open?

It must be really taking its toll. I'm exhausted by it, in all honesty. It's very, very tiring. But at the same point, it's also very, you put yourself in a position of responsibility when you become an employer, you know, you build teams of people around you and, you know, and you continue building those teams.

And when things are good and you're moving forward as leadership, you need to be able to lead. You need to be able to lead by example and you need to be able to encourage and you need people to be able to grow. And you also need to be able to make those very tough tough um and difficult decisions and we go through that every day and and it's kind of finding that balance like everybody the escapism that you you get from having kids from my point of view having ac is quite um he doesn't i mean he knows there's a virus going on and you know things are a bit weird you know when daddy drops him off at school i gotta be wearing a mask and all that sort of stuff but it's not the realities of of what's

going on outside in real life is he's got absolutely no idea so you know what he wants to do is play with dinosaurs and build a massive lego castle you know what i mean it's kind of like and that that kind of escapism is amazing you know know, going to the park, riding his bike, feeding the ducks, all just mundane, normal stuff is a wonderful way of escaping the hard realities of what's going on. So as a coping mechanism, to be honest, I just, my whole life, most of the time is slightly removed from the realms of normality. Nothing in my life is um

i don't really have routine and i don't really i love routine but that's gone years ago you know every day is very different and every half every day is very is that just part of the deal of being a chef is it just carnage all day every day i mean chefs actually love routine you know the the idea of things working day in day out the same I think that the key to successful restaurants is always about consistency and consistency is led by you know recipes being the same and repeated over and over again repetitiveness and that kind of routine is knowing the time that you start work, where the systems are, the way that everything works on a daily basis is key to the way that chefs actually work.

But I think the moment you put yourself as a business owner and you open numerous sites or you have different pressures put on you from different angles and different conversations, and then all of a sudden you put yourself in a position where you're um i suppose you get involved in media in different ways but then you get pulled about in so many different different times in the morning different things to do you know for example looking at new meat supplies and business so monday morning for example we're probably heading into smithfield market four o'clock in the morning whereas wow you know i might be doing something late at night and then we might be doing a podcast or we might be doing a television appearance or cooking live on this morning or who knows, there's so many different, or going into a restaurant and

talking about the new dessert menu that we open with in London. They're all very, very different. So there is absolutely no routine. And in some ways, I absolutely love it because I like chaos in my life. But it's normally, I used to enjoy it under my own control. So I gave up drinking and I used to like the chaos of drinking. But now I don't have that. I quite like the chaos of everything else. But sometimes it feels completely out of control. And I don't mind that.

I don't mind the world of of the unknown why do you like chaos Tom that's fascinating um I find it it's new you don't know what's going to happen next it's like walking into a room of I mean of loads of people that you don't know I don't mind I like being in conversations in business or with people I like I quite like awkward silences because I like being in conversations in business or with people. I quite like awkward silences because I like to think I'm going to break next. I like all of that. Like is probably the wrong word. I enjoy.

You slive on it. Do you slive on the chaos? Yeah, I do. I really kind of enjoy those. This might be interesting. Where are we going with this? I do like the upheaval of stuff and you get stronger as a person when you deal with things like that on a constant

basis and you're only ever going to get stronger as a person dealing with things like that if you face up to it and go through it yeah that's a good attitude so I'm going to take you back to about the most chaotic thing that can happen in anybody's life which is the arrival of a good attitude so i'm going to take you back to about the most chaotic thing that can happen in anybody's life which is the arrival of a baby so tell us a little bit about ac's arrival into the world and how you the thriver on chaos found having a newborn at home because that is the epitome of chaos as well as i can tell yeah i mean everyone says it so as a chef we don't we do very well with no sleep. Like it's no problem. We normally get four or five hours, you know, if you're on a really busy push,

you know, you could do, you could survive on five hours sleep and your adrenaline gets pushed and you get up. But actually it's very, very different having kids, isn't it? You end up doing four or five hours sleep, but that's throughout the day in broken little bits of half hour. So there's not even like a solid two or three hour gap where you sleep solidly so that point was incredibly that he didn't sleep through the night properly for the first time for 18 months not a single night oh i can beat you i can beat you two years four months we had wow i mean that's amazing like and you're still alive to tell the tale yeah and i had I had another one. She's barely alive. Unbelievably, I went again.

But it is very difficult, isn't it? That chaos of it is crazy. But, I mean, him being born was quite a crazy thing to experience. But it's also, I mean, it's amazing. It's an incredible thing. I mean, he was massive as well. He was huge. So he was massive as well he's he was he was huge so he was like a giant child he was he was 11 pound four oh my goodness me so he was born he was he was almost born a teenager he came he was born being able to drive and argue back

but tell us about that as a dad because obviously you're speaking to two mums how does that moment when someone hands you your i was going to say little baby but in your case 11.4 monster baby yeah you know tell us how that feels to you as a dad because it's impossible as a mum to know yeah yeah it's incredibly special actually um because you're slightly disconnected from the whole experience like for the nine months prior you're not growing it you're not you're just dealing with the trying to build the house and help the nesting process and go through understanding trying to understand what your partner or wife or other half wants and needs that day and trying to

create everything around that helps create that environment. But you're not experiencing it. Nothing is happening to you physically different or even, you know, hormonally, mentally different. You're just having to deal with the situation in a different way. And a mentally hormonal wife. Yeah, actually, Beth was very, she was great. She was fantastic. There was no, she didn't really have much in the way of cravings or mood swings or it was, she was very tired.

But it was, in terms of a pregnancy, for Beth's point of view, it wasn't, the first 16 weeks were pretty, were quite hard. But actually the rest of it was, it wasn't as traumatic as some of our friends had had. So it was like, okay, and you get to that point and it was quite important for us. So we knew whether we were having a girl or a boy about halfway through, we made the decision. And I say we, Beth made the decision to go.

As all good women should. Well, actually it was me that wanted to know but beth was quite anti it and then she was like no no actually you should know because and this is the point where i think it's actually very good for couples and for the father to find out because it allowed you then to connect because before you're just still guessing you don't know you're you're just kind of on the outside guessing what's in. The moment that we knew it was a boy, you can kind of start planning or future-proofing or you're buying into what essentially is going to happen to you. You're imagining what colour you're going to paint the bedroom

or what toys you're buying or you're imagining going to football matches or whatever daft dad things you normally think about. You connect then to the pregnancy and a little bit better I think the process so then when he's finally born it was it's one of those um it's a very special moment and it's a bit different from because Beth talks about it is at that moment she almost didn't want to give birth because then it means she's having to share the thing she's grown with everybody else it was quite that whole period of growing with him oh that's lovely had been something that she loved very much that then when it came to it she almost didn't want to give him up so it felt like you know she was having to share him so but actually

that moment was incredibly yeah it was super special as a dad and you are you know you go through that super proud moment you think you you make sure that you know your wife's okay everything's all right it's no problem and then you start asking all the daft questions of the big wife and the and the doctors and going is he all right like I mean is there a reason is there a reason why he's born that big I mean what is it like it's kind of like all of those sort of questions, the reality of it. And then, you know, it's that next thing, isn't it?

All of a sudden you're responsible for another human being that you've got no, there's no experience of. I mean, there's booklets and there's understanding. You can read stuff of what to do, but no one actually knows, do they? No one really knows the emotional and physical impact that a child coming into your life has and it's forever and it's weird like you can't ever imagine life without them now yeah you can't remember what you used to do can you I remember thinking what did we used to

do with all that time what did we do all day it's so weird so how old is he now Tom he'll be five just before Christmas oh such a good age and what's he into at the moment does he show any interest in cooking he enjoys cooking yeah he does enjoy actually yeah he likes to get involved with lots of things he's actually really quite good at his reading and his drawing and his letters and his words and things. So he's very good at that. But in terms of like playing and toys, I mean, he was always mad over cars, mad, mad, mad about cars. I mean, he learned all of his colors

and he learned counting from watching Formula One. In fact, he was watching that on TV before Peppa Pig. And that wasn't forced upon him by a dad that likes Formula One. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Truly, it was him choosing. He would sit there for 20, 25 minutes watching cars race and learning the colours. And there's a racing driver for Red Bull called Max Verstappen

and he could pronounce his name better than he could say the word yellow. I mean, I was quite impressed with that as a three-year-old. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, so he loves his cars. He's well into dinosaurs, pretty much like any other five-year-old, I suppose. Cars, dinosaurs, running around, kicking football, going on a scooter, loves going to a BMX track, all of those sort of things. And is he still massive?

Yeah, he is. He's a big lad, yeah. He's in, like, six, seven-year-old clothes. Well, actually, one of my life highlights, I'll give it up now, was standing behind you once, Tom, in the queue for the Eurostar. And you're not short yourself, are you? No, where was I going? We were both coming back from Paris to London.

Do you remember me at all? No. You were with a load of blokes. Yeah, you were. Yeah, that was over a mission star chef. So that would have been Fat Bane, Corp Ozzy and Daniel Clifford. There was four of us. We all went for lunch.

Yeah, you looked really smart. You had a really cool outfit on. You had a really cool grey jacket. And then you had really cool trainers on, I honey you know you obviously spent basically time on your store yeah we all went we all went to paris for lunch so that was so all those those other three chefs have all got two mission stars themselves each in their restaurants so restaurants at baines and midsummer house in cambridge and we've all been very very good friends for a long long long time and we went for a lunch at a French restaurant Guy Savoy which is a three Michelin star restaurant in Paris and we all went there

for a bit of a boys trip and it was yeah we were there we were there lunch and back there and back on the same day. I love it a normal boys trip is like strip clubs in Prague and you go to Michelin star restaurants in Paris. I think I'd quite like one of your boys trips. I've got to be honest, I'm 47 now. I've stopped drinking over seven years. You're not 47, stop it. If someone said how old's Tom Carriage,

I would say late 20s, early 30s. Oh, give over, woman. I'm serious. Honestly, you've got a very boyish face, don't you think? Well, that's because I gave up drinking it. So I stopped drinking. Right, there we go. That's the key.

That's what we're doing this weekend. No, we're not. So the boys trips to strip clubs, that ended a while ago. I've got to be honest. It also kind of half ended when people end up kind of knowing who you are. You can't be in a strip club when people know who you are. Yeah, you're not exactly inconspicuous, are you? No, no.

Well, I'm going to step away from the slightly weird questions of my co-host and ask you something a bit more normal. So you've got two Michelin stars. Yeah. Where were you when you heard and what was that like? Because it must be like the, I don't know, the equivalent is Annie and I winning a Nobel prize, which is obviously on the cards, but not quite yet. So how does it feel? Do you jump up and down like a little kid? What

do you do? We were actually in the restaurant at the time and someone came from, we knew it was the launch of the Michelin Guide that day and Michelin contacted us to say that they're filming lots of videos up and down the country to coincide with the launch of the Guide. So they sent a young cameraman with the camera and then he was filming the launch of the Guide and passed me a letter. Oh, wow. And I opened the letter and the letter as i read the letter out they filmed it all and it was us um a letter from rebecca burr who's head of mission

letting us know that we'd achieved two mission sides two mission stars in that guide which was amazing the team like it was brilliant it was fantastic to achieve that sort of thing i mean it's a huge team effort and it's something that we were so like so super proud of it was just yeah it was an amazing it was an amazing experience it was fantastic but it's all captured on film so it's there on a youtube video somewhere i can't remember what it's called but yeah the launch of the michelin guide 2012 on youtube is there somewhere i was going to say how does it feel when your son asks you for spaghetti hoops for tea or says that he prefers schools macaroni cheese to yours when you've got a michelin star does it feel really gutting no to be honest i'm actually quite proud of that i'm quite i like the fact that he's not

he's not yet a food snob he's still most definitely he still most definitely likes um alphabetic spaghetti he's a big fan of crappy sausages um he's like any other standard four year old that he you know he eats he doesn't eat particularly um adventurous food he'll do a bit of broccoli now and then loves carrots peas and sweet corn is about the only vegetable he'll eat right now apart from that he's very into beige beige brown they all are exactly exactly, exactly. You can't really do much about it, can you? You know, that's just the way that it is. So what is then the go-to Tom Kellridge tea of choice for a fussy four-year-old?

Oh, yeah. I was going to ask what's for tea tonight, Tom. Tea tonight, I have absolutely no idea. It's whether I get back in time for tea tonight or not. I never, I never, to be honest, I'm never really there in time for it tonight or not i never i'm never to be honest i'm never really there in time for it he's normally had tea apart from the weekends um so a special specialty i'm quite you know we're quite lucky during lockdown i still use some of our suppliers we're doing home delivery so he's a massive fan of calamari absolutely love squid

we did deep fried squid with um chips and peas last friday and he's a honestly it's like it's like his dream tea so so we got the squid fresh squid and we crack it up and put it all in the break it's my dream tea yeah it's a bit of a step on from a fish finger isn't it it is yeah it is a bit of us but it's know, it's great. He does love fish. We're very lucky, you know, that, you know, he'll quite happily push on with fish. It's a big favourite of his. So yeah, so squid rings with oven chips and peas is kind of like a dream go-to tea. wanting to get too serious but I was reading about a bit about your parents Tom because I was trying to understand kind of what kind of dad you were and why you became the dad you were and I read you say that you didn't feel like you grew up with a dad because he was diagnosed with MS when you were six I think then your parents got divorced then he died when you were 18 how has that experience shaped who you've become as a dad um well massively I suppose but I don't I have

nothing to gauge it on like say so my dad was ill when I was young but then mum and dad split up when I was 11 but he was never like even there as kids he was he wasn't there very much he was always um he was always doing his own thing it's probably the best way of describing it um and also and then not very well and then became became very, very ill from, I suppose, from my early teen years onwards to the point where he passed away. So it was always, I never grew up with a father figure. So I had nothing to... Base it on, yeah.

Yeah, I had nothing to gauge it against. You know, my mum did an exceptional and amazing job of being... Yeah, she sounds like a superhero, Tom. Yeah, no, an exceptional and amazing job of being she sounds like a superhero tom yeah no she did an amazing job of of being this brilliant all-round super parent you only realize now being a parent how difficult that is you only realize when you become one don't you yeah so so to be honest i've got nothing to gauge being a dad on. We're both learning that father figure relationship as we go on together. So, I mean, he's got a granddad from Beth's side. You know, grandpa is still, Beth's father is still around and is an amazing individual.

So he's got, you know, in terms of grandparents, that's great. But in terms of a father figure, we're both learning as we go. We're making it up as we go along. And I mean, again, that's that blagging chaos I quite like. I've got nothing to gauge against whether I'm doing it right or wrong. So we're just going, you know, as long as we're getting there, it's all right. Yeah, so in a way, it must be quite freeing because you can just choose who you want to be, can't you? You're not trying to live up to an idol or like this perfect dad thing, are you?

No. I mean, I suppose I've got a vision of what I should be like there's a perfect dad and then quite often you don't reach that you know you know like sometimes when you're tired and grumpy and he's just being really naughty and he's pulling the dog by the legs and you're just like yes you get a you know you get aced stop that like you lose you not lose your temper but you you just kind of go that enough you know you get aced stop that like you lose you not lose your temper but you you just kind of go that enough you know and then afterwards you think oh did i you know we've all done that tom yeah of course like and it's standard behavior and also kids need to understand the point of discipline of when to stop you know and you can't you know it doesn't work with a four-year-old if

you go just don't do that because the dog doesn't like his legs being pulled off you know what i mean it's kind of like no it doesn't you know you have to find that way of getting that balance across but yeah sometimes sometimes you go oh maybe i could have dealt with that differently or i could have sat him down and we could have talked about maybe the pain that the dog's in or you know the reality of it is that you know the day-to-day version of life like that it's the same for everybody parental guilt i know is the same for everybody you know although mine is slightly probably a little bit more extreme like everything else that you know sometimes I'm out the door early and not back till very late at night and that might be five six seven days in a row so I might not see him some points when the restaurants are open for six or seven days but then you go actually so that so that parental guilt of not

being around is quite hard. But everybody has that. Everybody has the same thing. You know, you can't put your kids up from school because you're still working and some of them have to go into a kids club or they have to do... Everybody has some level of going, you know, I should be doing this more or being a better parent by doing this. So it's just getting to terms and trying to find the balance of it but I don't think it's any different to anybody else no I also think that when I hear people like or anyone who's a parent say what you've just said which is you sit back and wonder sometimes am I getting it right I think it probably shows that you are because you're bothering to worry about it do you know what I mean yeah yeah I worry more when I hear people say yes I'm an amazing parent and it's all

going really well. We just know they're lying. Really? Basically, they're just not telling the truth at that point. Now, Tom. Yes. One of the biggest net mum stories of all time. Oh, yes, this is so true.

Is about you. Yes. Really? It's a story about tinfoil. Hear me out here. So on one of your shows a few years ago, you were talking about the fact that the whole nation uses tinfoil the wrong way because we all use it shiny side up and we should be using it shiny side down. And we ran this story and hundreds of thousands of people.

Literally hundreds of thousands of people. Literally hundreds of thousands. And it's now one of our well-known reruns and it's colloquially known as the Tom Kerridge, Tim Foyle story. And it goes out all the time and it always does well. I love that. But this is where the pressure's on because now I need you to create another kitchen tip that's going to get me.

Yeah, come on. What have we been doing wrong, Tom? What do we need to know? What have we need to know wrong let me have a little think uh i mean there's one that i've seen recently about box cheese graters go on so you your cheese grater your box grater most people stand it up and grate downwards yeah however if you put it on the side yeah and then grate that way that's supposed to be the right way of doing it because you get a greater volume out of it and it's easier to do oh my goodness will it stop me grating my knuckles as well which is a common occurrence exactly so we may well all of us may well have been grating cheese incorrectly story because also i get really bad arm ache from grating Annie come on seriously

and also I could never be a chef this is really boring about me I can't lift up a lot of sauce pans when they've got stuff in them because my wrists just bend back but anyway that's a whole this is why she's a journalist not a chef I think that might be more trips to the gym needed I know I know well talking of that this is a mind list of questions. Tell us how you transformed yourself body-wise because it's incredible. Well, I try, I mean, I stopped drinking, which was a big thing. And then I, you know, as I was approaching 40, I recognised that I need to do something.

It's an age thing that you go. Yeah, it is an age. I need to make a decision about not being being that person you know i i recognize that i have i had an issue i have an issue with alcohol i have an issue with um i had an issue with excessive behavior they'll go okay i really need to get a grip of my life here i need to make a change and it wasn't professional reasons you know the businesses were doing very well that i've done two or three books by this point. Television was great.

It was just like, right, okay. It was very self-recognized point of going, right, I need to make that change. So I swam. I used to swim quite a bit. So I swam every day. I used to swim a mile every day and was very conscious about what I ate. And then I still am, and then it still goes backwards. I go for extremes.

I went from swimming and then I went massively into weightlifting and I tried to lift really heavy stuff and I got quite big. And then I stopped again and then I've lost a load of weight. And now I've started weightlifting again. And then once I've done that,

I'll probably then go into trying to be swimming again and then slim down. And I just get- So it's about mixing it up so that you're always interested in what you're doing right 100 yeah it's interested and focused and have goals that i kind of want to achieve of going and none of that is to do with actually physical appearance it's all to do with um how you feel yeah and being out there on a daily basis to go, right, I want to get to this point.

And I get quite obsessed with numbers in terms of, right, I need to achieve this, or I want to lift this particular weight, or I want to ride this far on a watt bike, or I want to do whatever. Like all of those sort of things, I get kind of like a slightly OCD kind of dog that gets obsessed with a tennis ball that I need to try and focus on that thing. But wait what time of day are you doing all this you've got a million businesses and employees you've got a son when do you do this? So pre-lockdown I used to try and get into the gym around about six o'clock in the morning so I would get up and go into the gym at six

and then do an hour or two there and then go on to the rest of the day or i try and squeeze it in during the day or i'm now in lockdown i've got um one of those watt bikes at home and i've um just finished with a full squat rack in the garage uh yesterday being built so so i'm still on the weight stuff but the good thing about having it at home is now that if I still have to leave at six in the morning go anywhere and I've missed the gym it means I could still do it at midnight when I get back so I will still be obsessively do it I'd rather give up on sleep than give up on on living wow that's a good line it's a really

good line I think I need to become more like you you've talked quite a lot about giving up booze was there a moment where you went okay enough now I'm just a twat when I'm drunk and I need to stop but also was it easy you say you gave it up like you just woke up and like yeah I'm going to stop that but it must have been hard yeah so I mean there was a build-up towards um the point of giving up I knew the date it was like the 6th of january 2013 and i was like right okay so that point was um it was because there was the run-up to that year had been massive like i was drinking i mean drinking hugely excessively massively every single day every and then that christmas that nove that November December the run-up to it

there were a number of like really massive idiot incidents that I mean a couple made newspaper stuff and a couple made and I was just like oh and then and then there were a couple of like really stupid things that happened that I couldn't like I couldn't say but they were just so daft and they were with people that were high profile. And I was just like, my God, this is just getting crazily out of hand now, this run up to the point. But I knew the point I was giving up drinking

and that I think probably made it even more excessive. The last two hours, yeah. I needed to get through New Year that year, New Year's Eve. And then there was a big party that I knew was planned on I think it was the 9th or the 6th of um January then and then I woke up I knew that that next morning I wasn't going to drink so that so I I woke up the next morning and I stopped and yes it was it's incredibly difficult it still is very difficult but it it's nowhere near as difficult as it used to be and like it was it was very very very hard because

it's something it's not just taking some, it's not just like, right, I'm not eating biscuits again. It's a change of your whole life, your social, your connection, just everything that you do. Alcohol is involved in so many different parts of people's lives. And I built myself up over a six-month period to go, that's the point where I'm going to stop. That's still pretty impressive, though, just to stop and decide by sheer force of will.

Yeah. Well done, you Tom. That's not easy. Yeah, thanks. I mean, there were a couple of incidents right that year. In that first year, there were probably about three times I fell off the wagon. And then that was it. Yeah, there was a period in November when it all went a little crazy. There was my 40th birthday, which I knew I was going to drink. I thought I'd have a drink on the day, but like standard, it was a five-day bender. And then there was a period in November when it all went horribly wrong.

And then after that, that was it. There's been nothing since November 2013. Well, good on you. Good man. I'm really impressed. Now, switching to lighter topics, where do you most want to eat when lockdown lifts? And should we copy you? There's so many different brilliant restaurants up and down the country, aren't there?

I mean, and it depends the sort of thing that you want. It depends if you want to go super posh or super special or whether you just want to go something really nice and easy. But for me, there's a brilliant little restaurant in Tankerton near Whitstable called Jojo's. Nikki is the chef there. She cooks brilliant, brilliant food, very, very simple, kind of tapestry, sharing-y style dishes. Little Man loves it there.

They do these kind of like great little deep fried cheesy gnocchi ball things as a starter and he loves them and the idea of that kind of like family style sharing and in an atmosphere that's just fun there's no you know so that we can all go i mean we can all have special occasions with um other hearts which is amazing but actually taking the whole family there so jojo's in tankerton near Whitstable. That's where I'd go. Right. I'm going. As soon as we're allowed.

Yeah. Okay. So we're starting to round up and we always ask this of our guests. Tom Kerridge, how do you want to be remembered? Do I want to be remembered? Oh, okay.

Maybe you don't. That's interesting. It's a bit self-indulgent and a bit vain in it to want to be remembered. I think probably just by close friends and family as being somebody that just had a go, that's probably the best thing. Like someone who had a go at living a life,

that would probably be the best thing. I like that. I like that too. Now, lowering the tone, as I am want to do I am a fellow Wiltshire hillbilly Tom yeah so I have to ask you my favourite Wiltshire phrase of all time is girt lush what's yours I would go with that actually I mean I don't normally use the word girt and to be be honest, Lush I use a lot. I was born in Wiltshire, but I've never actually lived there. So it was the only hospital that could fit my mum in on the day. So I was born in Wiltshire. Then for the first year, I lived in Bristol. And then I moved to Gloucester when I was just before I was one. So I count

myself as coming from Gloucester, because where I was born, I never lived. So it's quite a weird nomadic first year. So I've got no place that I really go, oh, yeah, that's home. Like the most home I've ever felt is Marlow, I think. But you sound quite Bristolian. There's a lot of Bristolian in that accent. How dare you? It's Gloucester, not Bristol. So, yeah, Gloucester's about 30 miles up the M5

and it's a far superior city to Bristol. Far superior. Is it? No. It's got a much nicer rugby pitch and it's got, what else has Gloucester got going for it? Let's not go rugby because I'm from near Bath, so we'll have a row. Yeah, we'll see. That's it.

I mean, there couldn't be anywhere worse, could there? I mean, Little Bath so we'll have a row yeah we'll see that's it I mean there couldn't be anywhere worse could there then I mean I that little man we're fairly certain he's going to grow up being a rugby player whether whether he's going to be a pro or not we don't know but he loves the aggression definitely going to be a prop that's for sure the point when he says yeah Bath want to sign me that's the point where he has to leave home right you've got to ask him the last question Annie I can't talk to him anymore. Okay, all right. I'll split up the fight.

So our last question, we ask it of everyone, every guest, every episode is, please can you imagine you're tucking Wendy and I into bed and sing us your lullaby? Because every family has a little song that they sing if their kids can't sleep. We want to know what yours is and we want to hear it, please. I'm going to play you it, right? So this is the lullaby that your mum wants right every night that he goes to bed he has to have this on um it's on spotify and he loves it and it's soothing strings right for sleeping babies oh it's called schlaff kinderlein Schlaff, and he loves it. And that is it.

And he will go to sleep to this. Right now, he'll go to sleep to either that or the Ninja Kids song. Well, I think you're going to have a rush of people now going to download the German Baby Strings or whatever it's called. Perfect. Thank you, Tom. Right, thank you so much, Mr. Courage. We admire you greatly and you've been a fab guest. Thanks very much for having

us on. Good luck with everything. Take care. Bye. Bye.