History of Me 0-20

 I was privileged to grow up in Manchester where my father managed The Free Trade Hall, in those days the city’s premier venue for music concerts and other events. I’m probably the only person who has seen Kathleen Ferrier, Pablo Casals, Dizzy Gillespie, Bob Dylan (the ‘Judas’ concert) and The Sex Pistols, all live! Well, it’s fame of a sort…

Manchester Town Hall

I was a latchkey kid as both my parents worked unsocial hours, my mother being responsible for mobilising the army of waitresses at the banqueting functions at Manchester Town Hall. She personally served 3 generations of royals, umpteen heads of state and untold celebrities from Arturo Toscanini to Yuri Gargarin, first man in space.

 If I wasn’t going to starve I had to learn to cook, which I did at an early age. Fortunately Mum, a brilliant plain cook, was a good teacher. Better still was my Auntie Ethel who ran a hotel in the Lake District. She enlisted me to work in her kitchen in the school holidays at the age of 12 – as a ‘toast burner’. She decided I could hack it (or maybe I was just cheap labour) and the engagement was repeated during every vacation for the next 5 years until I became a de facto commis.

 I went up there on the bus; the journey, in those pre-M6 days, taking an age as it plodded through the ‘Cotton towns’. The day before she rang up to instruct me to go to Sammy Black’s deli off Oxford Street to purchase a large assortment of goodies. I also had to visit Forsyth Brothers to acquire the latest sheet music, show tunes mostly, for the piano. Lumbered with packages I had to arrive early at the coach station to get the middle seat on the back row, only one that would accommodate me and the impedimenta on my lap. I arrived, four-and-a half hours later,  numb-bummed and stiff-necked in Penrith whence my Uncle Eric collected me in his beige Morris Oxford and drove me to the hotel.

 When I reached the age of 15 Auntie Ethel started to tutor me in wine, commencing with Nuits St.Georges, her personal favourite, which she called ‘New-its’. My first assignment was to compare and contrast ‘New-its’ with a ‘Morgan’. She was a fab aunt, a great cook and a hilarious practical joker. For my 18^th birthday she sent me 4 parcels. Unwrapped, these revealed a bottle of Chateau Haut Brion, a luminous necktie, a water pistol and three dozen condoms. I still can’t figure out what the water pistol was for, any ideas? Auntie Ethel died some years ago. According to the matron of the home where she resided she was “addicted to Crème de Menthe’” a diagnosis that disgusted her daughter, a recovering alcoholic herself.

Auntie Ethel’s tutelage served me ill when I started to take girls out to dinner and realised how much drinking wine I enjoyed would cost me. But many years later her efforts to school my palate hit pay dirt. I still bless the day when an editor swept into a meeting saying “My son-in-law tells me wine’s the coming thing. Who knows anything about wine?” Having given me the gig he said “You may as well review restaurants as well.” I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Twenty-odd years later, I still do.

Manchester is a cosmopolitan city and an impromptu luncheon club started by students who hung around the coffee bar in the Central Reference Library served to give me an appreciation of global cuisine. Thanks are due to Johnson for the Cantonese food from his restaurant;  Theo and ‘Jimmy’ for their afelia and  ’cizbourgi’ – for years I thought cheesebugers were authentic Greek food; Silvia and Fulvia’s Mum for her ragu and minestrone – I use her recipes to this day; Zé’s aunt for her paella and Kasmi and Memon for their after cricket curries. Mustn’t forget Doris, my mum, for her Lancashire hotpot, oxtail and jam tarts.

The 'Central Ref', Manchester

My culinary horizons were further widened by two stints working in Manchester’s wholesale fish market – possession of an enormous leather ‘elephant’s ear’ apron, a pair of clogs and a savage knife heightened the enjoyment immensely. The experience also enriched my vocabulary of swear words.

There is one other influence it would be churlish to ignore. In my first week as a university student at Southampton I forsook my landlady’s cuisine terrible in favour of dining in a cut-price café, invariably on my way home from the Junior Common Room bar last thing at night. On my second or third visit I encountered a fellow student, year above me, name of Paddy Sheehan. He proceeded to scam two-thirds of my burger whilst investing me with the sort of glowing feeling you’d get if you’d solved a famine crisis in the Third World. It was my initial introduction to Irish charm.