WEBVTT - Stephen Fry 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:09.520 You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair. 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:12.160 There is a well known cartoon in the New Yorker 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:17.200 magazine depicting President Franklin Eleanor Roosevelt in his pajamas on 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:20.439 his knees next to his bed, saying a prayer for 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:24.920 his wife, the most active first lady in history. Dear Lord, 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:30.360 please make Eleanor tired tomorrow. I can imagine the friends 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:33.879 and family of Stephen Frye saying the same prayer. For 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:39.240 there is very little Stephen doesn't do. Actor, comedian, television host, director, 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:44.680 prolific writer with four novels, three autobiographies, and countless columns 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:48.040 in national papers. But should you ask, as I've been doing, 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:51.640 the people who know him really well, what Stephen is 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:56.000 best at, they will answer being a friend. As for me, 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:59.720 I love this man, all he stands for, and quite 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:03.840 say who he is, and I would change FDR's prayer. 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:08.160 I would say, Dear Lord, we all need Stephen fry 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:11.120 Please do not make him tired tomorrow. 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:14.240 Ruth, I don't know what to say. You're going to 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:16.600 have to tiptoe out of the room now. I can't 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:18.360 possibly live up to such an introduction. 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:23.000 So I'm sitting here in the River Cafe in our 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:28.119 New Sylvia's dining room. So shall we read the recipe 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:30.520 for the polenta and almond cake. 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:34.039 So here is the recipe or receipt, as upper class 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:39.679 people used to say, we have torta di manoli mandole. 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:42.480 Of course he's also you know those pictures that the 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:45.240 Renaissance artists did of a face in a in a 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:47.360 frame that has a point at the top and a 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:49.480 point at the bottom. I sort of point. They call 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:53.000 that a mandola because it's the shape of an almond. Yeah, anyway, 0:01:53.160 --> 0:02:00.360 tooni polenta almond and lemon cake. This serves ten or right, 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:03.200 So have you got your pencils out and you're licking them? 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:06.720 These first three dry ingredients are grapes, the same quantity 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:09.600 four hundred and fifty grams of unsalted butter. That's not 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:13.400 a dry ingredient, stephen softened. So remember in the morning, 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:16.440 first thing, take the butter out of the fridge. Four 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:18.639 hundred and fifty grams of casta sugar, four hundred and 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:24.680 fifty grams of ground almonds, six of your finest eggs, 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:29.160 the zest of four lemons, and the juice of one lemon, 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:33.120 then two hundred and twenty grams of polent of flour, 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:36.840 one teaspoonful of baking powder. I never really know the 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:40.200 difference between baking powder and by carbonate of soda. There 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:42.200 is a huge difference. I'm being told in my ear 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:48.200 by my expert. So it's baking powder. Don't substitute with 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:52.120 anything else, baking soda or anything. So one teaspoonful of 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:56.360 baking powder, quarter a teaspoonful of salt. You will have 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:58.880 preheated the oven at this point two one hundred and 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:01.640 sixty degrees centigrade, I would say one hundred and forty 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:07.000 or fifty fan. Then butter and flour, a thirty centimeter 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:10.320 cake tin, which I hope you have lying handily around. 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:13.480 Beat the butter and sugar together until it becomes pale 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.040 and light, and that really does happen. The butter is 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:19.080 good British butter, yellow to start with. But it's amazing 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:21.200 how as it beats and beats and the sugar gets 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:24.360 released into it, it does become notably lighter. And that's 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:27.639 your signal to add the ground almonds. Then you stir 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:30.520 to combine them, and then you add the eggs one 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:34.120 at a time, and beat the mixture through. Fold in 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:37.640 the lemon zest, the lemon juice. The smell will rise 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.720 up into your nostrils. Then the polenta, which gives the 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:44.040 cake its major name, of course, the baking powder, and 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:47.520 the salt spoon. The mixture that then is now nice 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:50.200 and smooth into your prepared tin, and you bake in 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:53.000 the preheated oven for forty five to fifty minutes or 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:56.360 until set. I guess the old toothpick taste test will do, 0:03:57.440 --> 0:03:59.520 and the cake will be deep brown on top. That 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:03.560 that's a cue. It's delicious on its own, as I 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:08.680 can absolutely testify. With a cappuccino perhaps, or a glass 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:14.280 of vincanto. And when in season here at this place 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:19.039 of joy, the River Cafe, it says we caramelize blood oranges. 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:21.960 Can you imagine what you're doing this morning, Darning, I'm 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:27.160 caramelizing some blood oranges. It reminds me of wonderful Les Dawson, 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:29.839 the Northern comedian. Well, I can't stop chapping. I've got 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:32.680 a cape on to baste, I've got sausages to prick 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:35.719 and so on. Anyway, I've I've got blood oranges to 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:38.560 caramelize and you serve that with the cake, and you 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:41.760 just couldn't do better. It's one of the great great recipes. 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:45.560 I think that if I, even in the last four minutes, 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:48.320 I have now understood that you are a great cook. 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:51.960 You're a great eater. But you are you know, are 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:54.680 you a passionate cook? Would you describe yourself? Tell me 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:55.760 about cooking? 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:59.080 I was. I had a strange shout, and which was 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:02.800 in it sounds if I said, it sounds like it's 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:05.320 I don't know, Downton Abby or something that it really wasn't. 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:08.799 But my parents did have a cook, and we had gardeners, 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.560 and we had an old fashioned Victorian kitchen garden, and 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:15.640 so I was used to the fact that every day 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:18.159 the gardeners would come to the back door and missus Risebro, 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:21.160 the cook, would select some of the vegetables or tell 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:22.919 them to go off and get something else, depending on 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:26.080 what she was cooking. And I would hang around, age 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:29.200 five or something watching her. I'd see her do things 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:31.040 like I mean, she was what used to be called 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:34.080 a good English plane cook. So she didn't do anything 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:38.039 terribly fancy, but everything she did was just right. Pies 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:40.640 and tarts and things like that. She was very good 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:43.880 at and she would take her thumb and put little 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:47.400 squares of pastry on it and pull them back to 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:49.320 make a rose that would go in the center of 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:53.320 pies and things. So touches. Yeah, and she made pork pies. 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:57.200 She made, oh yeah, basically anything but you could make 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:00.479 she made. We had a game larder and a things 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:03.520 and so we'd have birds hung and things like that. 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:05.480 Sounds good, missus Er. 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:06.360 She was one. 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:07.720 Would they entertain? 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:10.520 Oh yeah, they were, and they were very social. Yes, 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:13.120 my mother would do dinner parties and when I was young, 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:16.680 and up until I was about twelve fourteen, maybe that 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:21.320 the there would be dinner jackets and black tie and 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:23.599 the men would be left alone by the women in 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:26.279 the dining room. So that's you know, that tradition that's 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:27.479 still going the women. 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:30.040 The men's stayed the women withdrew. 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:33.520 And I remember my mother saying. My mother read history. 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:36.320 She was was she was a history graduates and she 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:40.119 taught it occasionally. And I would say to her white, 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:43.680 the men's stay behind. And I think someone had said 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:45.640 to me, so they can tell dirty jokes that women 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:47.800 don't hear. My mother said, no, you know what it 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:52.600 is really, she said. The Victorians, the women did not 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:54.719 like drawing attention to the fact that they had to 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:58.320 use lavatries. So if they all went in one go, 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:00.839 they would go up to the lavoratries, use avatures together 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:03.039 and then get down into the drawing room and they'd 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:06.240 be sitting there. But if everybody went into the drawing 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:09.720 room together after the meal and the women said I'm 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:12.400 going to go now, everyone go, oh, she's off for 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:16.840 a piss. And so it was just a discreet way 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:21.320 of women having that chance to do that without being noticed, 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:21.840 as it were. 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:25.520 And so you have your memories are of home and 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:29.120 good food and a care for food. 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:32.320 Because my mother had food. I went say issues, but 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:35.280 she would drive the gardener's mad because she'd go out 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:37.760 when the peas were ready and she would just eat 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:40.880 the entire crop of peas out of the pod. Yeah. 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:44.840 I remember one sitting on a railway train and we're 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:47.760 going from one small town in Italy to another, and 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:50.880 we'd go into the market and bought some peas, and 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:53.160 we had children with us, and we were all eating 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:56.640 the raw peas on the train carriage. Italians went mad. 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:00.880 I mean, the idea of eating a raw piece. Those 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:02.720 people were sitting at it, and we could have taken 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:05.880 off all our clothes and had more respect than giving 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:08.920 our children raw pies out of it. But what's more delicious? 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:11.920 Raw pie? And we make a salad? Do you ever have? 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:14.280 You know, you can make a salad with delicious. 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:19.000 But the other thing is that it was natural because 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:23.320 of the kitchen garden was everything was in season, so 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:26.240 you know, and there were fruit trees, you know, trained 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:28.800 against the outbuildings, plum trees and things like that. And 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:32.520 there were goosberry bushes and raspberry and black currants, and 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:41.080 four fantastic asparagus beds raised asparagus beds Belgian asparagus, quite 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:45.000 small and delicate asparagus. And my mother had constant war 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:47.800 with the gardeners because well, she had this theory and 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:56.480 that you shouldn't eat asparagus after ascot mid June something 0:08:56.520 --> 0:08:59.000 like that. I don't know anyway, she'd heard that somewhere 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:02.240 or been told that, and she of course was desperate 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:05.880 to get hold of Once the asperance was getting all 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:08.400 the ferns would come up, and she loved it for 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:09.240 flower rangings. 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:10.640 She sounds amazing. 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:17.240 She is sounds like she's still here, she's ninety two. 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:21.840 Because that I do think that inner knowledge and passion 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:25.720 for the garden, for the ferns, for the seasonality of saying. 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:29.440 And there is a very short season for good asparagus saska. 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:32.440 It is there isn't you know? In Paris one minute 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:34.760 you'd go down to the market and you know, there 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:37.880 were white asparagus and green asparagus and thin aspects, and 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:39.880 then they were gone, and we're just gone. And I 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:42.400 think it's here as well. And they do come from Norfolk. 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:44.600 Yes they do. But the criminal thing now, I think 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:47.600 in some ways is people don't understand that you can 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:52.880 store fresh fruit and vegetables. We had outhouses and there 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:57.400 would be newspaper and potatoes, and when we lifted all 0:09:57.400 --> 0:09:59.600 the potatoes and there there'd be and they'd last all 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:02.320 the way through as long as it was dark and cool, 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:05.040 which naturally would be being an outhouse. And the same 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:07.360 with apples and pears. They lost forever. 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:12.240 Your parents were interested in food come from their cultural. 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:14.679 My mother, yes, my father lesson. My father just did 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:16.240 everything that was put in front of him, and his 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:20.040 mind was on his work. He was a scientist. But 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:23.400 my mother was from a Jewish family, and Jews always 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:26.440 compared to the British in those days less so now 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:30.760 were obsessed with food, partly because in some cases they 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:33.720 knew poverty between the walls when things were really short 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:37.160 in Vienna and in Hungary, where my grandparents came from. 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:40.200 My grandfather was a good cook, and I remember, yeah, 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:44.400 he made the most beautiful sort of dill and cucumber 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:46.600 salads and things, and I really got a taste for 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:50.440 that kind of Central European flavor from him, things like 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:53.760 cucumbers and so on, which are very Central European polition, 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:58.400 hungering and other such things. And spicy, spicy, but not 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:02.080 in not like Indian or Mexican food spicy, but in 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:06.240 that sort of paprika spiciness, which I'm very fond of. 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:11.000 My grandparents were Hungarian. One side were Russian Jews who 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:14.440 left Russia, and the other were Hungarian Jews that left Hungary. 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:16.920 They came to the United States as part of the 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:24.080 Ellis Island in Flux in nineteen probably fifteen, right really early. 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:27.640 They got it early. So growing up in this household, 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:32.079 going to you then went away to school at age seven, 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:34.520 and was that a food shark as well as a 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:35.280 home shop. 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:40.200 It was. We grew up in Norfolk and obviously my 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:43.360 mother wouldn't force me to eat anything I hated. And 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:45.800 they arrived at this prep school age seven, which is 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:48.520 in Gloucestershire, two hundred miles right year was this, This 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:53.920 is in nineteen sixty four, and there are things like 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:58.600 semolina and tapioca hot milk puddings. Something about milk that's 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:02.320 been boiled makes me actually kick, makes me a dry heave. 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:05.320 And I saw these and I said, no, no, I can't, 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:08.360 I can't. And they forced it, literally holding my nose 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:10.640 like like a hunger strike thing. It was cruel in 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:12.280 those days, but of course you know it happened to 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:15.000 other boys, so you just think this is this is life. 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:17.920 But I really and I forced myself to throw up 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:21.400 at the table so that they stopped doing it. And 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:24.240 and it forced yourself. And it was written down Stephen 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:27.800 Fry or Fry s probably or Fry Junior because my 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:32.360 brother was there, allergic to hot milk. 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:36.800 Clever to figure out what to do. 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:38.800 Yeah, but it was I mean, it was all I 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:40.920 would say to Kensian. But it was a world of 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:45.000 chill blains and constipation and cold, you know. I mean 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:47.200 the way they heated a dormitory was just to have 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:49.560 a hot pipe running along the bottom, you know, no 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:56.880 radiators or anything. And so it wasn't ju desperately, I mean, yes, 0:12:57.000 --> 0:12:59.079 very much. So what it does I've spoken about this before, 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:04.280 and what it does is you start to obsess about sweets. 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:06.280 There's a touch shop in the school. We are called 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:10.120 the touch shop. Tuck is the school slang for goodies 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:13.360 for confectionery. And you start to get really obsessed with 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:14.840 when the touch shop can to be opened and how 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:17.400 much pocket money you've got to buy these things. And 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:20.640 this was the golden age of confectionery. Cabri was producing 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:23.959 new things like curly whirleyon and Aztec bars, and there 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:27.920 were these amazing you know, foam shrimps and flying sauces 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:31.200 made of rice paper and fruit salads four for a 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:34.120 penny and black jacks four for a penny. And I 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:38.240 became so obsessed that I would start breaking out of 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:41.160 school bunds and going to the village shop. And it 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:45.400 was in Gloucestershire, a little village called Yuli, and I 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:48.920 would spend whatever money I had on getting those sweets, 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:52.640 and it became a kind of obsession that my teeth 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:55.319 suffered by. You know, by the time I was twelve, 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:57.800 I was having huge amounts of fillings and even having 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:01.760 teeth out. But also interesting and this is you know, 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:05.280 I'm not using an excuse, but a lot of it 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:09.560 was preparation for smoking. There were these coconut shredded brown 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:14.200 fake tobaccos in a little wax paper with a Spanish 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:17.040 galleon on it, which was like rolling tobacco. There were 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:21.800 these candy cigarettes that you would have licorice, Yes, that's it. 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:26.040 They were, and in sort of fake Chesterfield packs softly 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:31.920 looked exactly like Chesterfield or something, or camel and licorice pipes, 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:36.800 and so they were getting you ready, well like pipe 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:40.000 smoker's pipe made out of a licorice. Yeah, and even 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:45.320 more sort of weirdly, the glamour of the white powder Sherbert, 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:47.960 so you'd suck it up through a licorice straw and 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:50.680 a Sherbert fountain. So it was preparing you for a 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:53.760 life to come. Yeah. So you then go from the 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:55.720 you know, when you were fourteen or fifteen, you go 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:58.880 for the real cigarettes and smoking, and then when you're 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:00.520 a little bit older than that, the real white power. 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:03.280 It's a terrible thought. I'm not excusing it or saying 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:06.320 that it was the school's fault that I, in later 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:08.080 life did become something of an addict. 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:10.520 I was even not to interrupt your story, but I 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:13.680 was going to say that culturally, if your parents were 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:19.320 Hungarian Jews background of that, did going to boarding school 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:20.520 come easier to them? 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:23.400 So my parents are both bought it all their time 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:25.480 as children, so there was no Yeah, there was nothing. 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:28.120 And you have to remember, if you're thinking how coral 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:29.680 to send a child away at the age of seven, 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:34.640 if that seven year old child has other friends as 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:37.520 I did in the Norfolk countryside, they were all boys 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:39.880 who were also going to go to school. And then 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:41.880 when you get to the prep school, obviously everyone's in 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:43.880 the same boat. So you just think this is what 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:46.440 life is like. You don't think this is so unfair. 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:49.400 There are people who are not going to boarding schools. 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:51.440 You just think you might. 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:53.680 Not, well, this is another discussion. You might not think it, 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:55.480 the child might not think it, but the parents might 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:56.040 think yes. 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:58.560 And I was aware that because because we would go 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:02.520 my mother and I from Norwich by train and breakfast 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:03.000 on the train. 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:03.320 You know. 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:07.880 It was so good because they had these silver they 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:12.920 did silver service. They had stewards in short white little tops, tunics, whatever, 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:16.600 and they would you know, the silver service in the 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:18.240 sense they would use a spoon and a fork in 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:21.480 the same hand, and they could definitely put the bacon 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:24.280 on a train, egg on a train exactly. And we 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:27.320 got to know them. Then they would recognize us and say, oh, 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:29.400 school again, young man, is it and all that, you know, 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:31.960 we would get the train and then we'd spend a 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:35.160 day in London. Sometimes we'd have lunch with my grandfather 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:39.160 at the walled Doff or the hotel. Yeah, that's sort 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:42.400 of Verre. He liked the yeah, the big. 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:44.840 Yeah there you go in there. That's what you got 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:48.920 their dances. 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:54.400 So that's a nice hotel. And and then go to 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:57.200 Paddington and that's where my heart wouldtart to sink and 0:16:57.240 --> 0:16:59.480 flutter a bit because you'd see at the end of 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:01.920 the platform on boys in these straw hats that we 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:06.560 call boaters, and that was the school compartment. But then 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.080 you'd notice, or I'd noticed that my mother was crying. 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:12.800 She was trying not to so touchy it's making me 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:15.760 move now because you know, everyone thinking how cruel of parents, 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:18.040 but they don't want to lose their child, but they 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:20.040 just feel that's the right thing for them. 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:22.600 You stayed in school till. 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:24.960 Oh ah, well, now we don't have enough time to 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:29.880 cover the chapters of disaster, do we. I went from 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:33.680 prep school. Prep school in England is age seven, which 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:36.720 is the youngest, and two thirteen, and then you would 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:38.960 take what was called a common entrance exam, which was 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:43.239 for public schools. I private schools, and so I went 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:47.000 to private school called Oppingham and my behavior was dreadful. 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:48.600 And then worst of all, I fell in love with 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:51.199 a boy. And I was so confused by this, so 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:55.720 absolutely astonished by the power of the emotion, the sheer 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:59.520 power that you could be obsessed for twenty four hours 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:02.639 a day and of nothing else and change your walking habits. 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:05.720 So you would bump into this person and knowing just 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:09.520 phenomenal obsession, not really sexual even I was, you know, 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:15.800 just something overwhelming. Was it reciprocated eventually there was a 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:23.560 nice moment, but yeah, yeah, it threw me completely and 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:29.040 certainly threw my concentration away. But the actual casus bellies 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:31.600 I think well, and should say the cause of the war, 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:38.120 the originating disaster was. I was a member, the youngest 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:42.119 member of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, and I 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:45.680 got permissioned from my housemaster to go to a meeting 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:50.639 of the Society in London in some grand club, and 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:53.480 I read a paper, I delivered a paper, and the 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:56.399 idea was that the next I was staying overnight at 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:58.760 the club and the next morning I would take a 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:04.240 train back to school. Well, the next morning I went 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:06.520 to a cinema and in those days, cinemas would sort 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:08.560 of start a program at ten in the morning or something, 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:10.840 and then just you could stay in the same cinema 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:13.240 and what the same film again and again. And the 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:15.520 film was Cabaret, and I was completely obsessed with it. 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:18.040 I just never seen anything like it. It was fantastic. 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:21.679 And then chose it, yeah, I mean almost randomly, not 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:23.680 knowing what it was or anything about it, not naying 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:26.920 you know about Christi Riischerwood or Eliza Beanelly or any 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:28.919 of the sort of background to it. And then I 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:30.800 wandered in the days to another cinema and there was 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:33.719 a clock work orange was on and unfortunately I was 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:36.200 although I was fourteen and a half, I could pass 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:40.480 as X, which was eighteen, I guess, and because being tall, 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:43.919 I suppose. And so there were there were three or 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:47.760 four films, I think The Godfather as well, and Fritz 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:50.800 the Cat, which was a sort of pornographic cartoon. Mem 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:55.320 do you remember so four days past? 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:56.640 You stayed four days? 0:19:56.680 --> 0:19:56.880 Yes? 0:19:57.200 --> 0:19:58.479 And was anybody out searching? 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:00.960 Yes? And there were terrified and they didn't know what 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:02.960 had happened to me, and they'd run away. What's going on? 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:05.960 And then I kind of came to in a sort 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:08.760 of days and went back to the school. There was 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:11.240 a lot of folded arms and tapping of feet on 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:12.840 the carpet. 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:14.280 And will anybody call the police? 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:17.000 Well they had done, Yes, they reported me as missing 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:20.200 after three days. I think whatever it was, so, yeah, 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:22.280 it was just a disaster. And I remember getting in 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:26.520 the car with my parents because I was expelled from 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:30.000 the school, and my father saying the words, we will 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:33.199 talk about this sorry incident when we get home. Sorry, 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:36.959 sorry incident. It was a sorry incident. 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:45.320 Did you know? The River Cafe has a shop. It's 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:48.760 full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:52.560 and linen Napkins kitchen ware, toad bags with our signatures, 0:20:52.600 --> 0:20:56.239 glasses from Venice, chocolates from Turin. You can find us 0:20:56.320 --> 0:20:59.040 right next door to the River Cafe in London or 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:02.920 online at shop the River Cafe dot co dot uk. 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:14.040 When you went to Cambridge, what was the food like there? 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:16.360 Then you were away from both the boarding school and 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:19.320 you were away from your parents. Could you create your 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:20.480 own food world more? 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:24.800 Yes, there were some students got friendly with who really 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:25.720 understood food. 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:29.080 Did you cook for yourself at Cambridge? Or was that hard? 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:30.919 If you were in college, you had your rooms and 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:32.600 you had what was called a jip room, which was 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:34.560 like a little kitchen, but it didn't really have a 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:38.040 proper oven or anything, so you couldn't do much there. 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:42.920 But because of the acting, I would, in particular after 0:21:43.040 --> 0:21:46.560 the May term, which is like the summer term at Cambridge, 0:21:47.080 --> 0:21:49.920 when it was over, I would stay on to rehearse 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:53.920 with friends all the plays we were taking up to Edinburgh. 0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:56.320 And then one might stay at totally different places, and 0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:58.960 I stayed with it rather than in your college, because 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:00.840