Humble Pie. Gordon Ramsay

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Название Humble Pie
Автор произведения Gordon Ramsay
Жанр Биографии и Мемуары
Серия
Издательство Биографии и Мемуары
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780007279869



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      Humble Pie

      Gordon Ramsay

      

       Copyright

      Harper

      An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2006 This edition 2007

      Copyright text © Gordon Ramsay 2006, 2007

      The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

      Source ISBN: 9780007229680

      Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2010 ISBN: 9780007279869 Version: 2015-03-18

      To Mum, from cottage pie to Humble Pie – you deserve a medal.

      Table of Contents

       Cover Page

       Title Page

       Dedication

       Chapter Four: French Leave

       Chapter Five: Oceans Apart

       Chapter Six: A Room Of My Own

       Chapter Seven: War

       Chapter Eight: The Great Walk-out

       Chapter Nine: The Sweet Smell Of Success

       Chapter Ten: Ronnie

       Chapter Eleven: Down Among The Women

       Chapter Twelve: Welcome To The Small Screen

       Chapter Thirteen: New York, New York

       Chapter Fourteen: Family

       Chapter Fifteen: The Important Things In Life

       Keep Reading

       Picture Credits

       Index

       About the Publisher

       FOREWORD

      IN MY HAND, I’ve got a piece of paper. It’s Mum’s handwriting, and it’s a list – a very long list – of all the places we lived until I left home. I look at this list now, and there are just so many of them. My eye moves down the page, trying to take in her spidery scribble, and I soon lose track. These places mean very little to me: it’s funny how few of them I can remember. In some cases, I guess that’s because we were hardly there for more than five minutes. But in others, it’s probably more a case of trying to forget about them as soon as possible. When you’re unhappy in a place, you want to forget about it as soon as possible. You don’t dwell on the details of a house if you associate it with being afraid, or ashamed, or poor – and as a boy, I was often afraid and ashamed, and always poor.

      Life was a series of escapades, of moves that always ended badly. The next place was always going to be a better place – a bit of garden, a shiny new front door – the place where everything would finally come right. But it never did, of course. Our family life was built on a series of pipe dreams – the dreams of my father. And he was a man whose dreams always turned to dust.

      I don’t think people grasp the whole me when they see me on television or in the pages of some glossy magazine. I’ve got the wonderful family, the big house, the flash car in the drive. I run several of the world’s best restaurants. I’m running round, cursing and swearing, telling people what to do, my mouth always getting me into trouble. They probably think: that flash bastard. I know I would. But it’s not about being flash. My life, like most people’s, is about keeping the wolf from the door. It’s about hard work. It’s about success. Beyond that, though, something else is at play. Is it fear? Maybe. I’m as driven as any man you’ll ever meet. I can’t ever sit still. Holidays are impossible. I’ve got ants in my pants – I always have had. When I think about myself, I still see a little boy who is desperate to escape, and anxious to please. The fact that I’ve long since escaped, and long since succeeded in pleasing people, has made little or no difference. I just keep going, moving as far away as possible from where I began. Where am I trying to get to? I wonder…Work is who I am, who I want to be. I sometimes think that if I were to stop, I’d cease to exist.

      This, then, is the story of that journey – so far. The tough childhood. My false start in football. The years I spent working literally twenty hours a day. My battles with my demons. My brother’s heroin addiction. The death of my father, and of my best friend. I’m just forty, and it seems, even to me, such an amazingly long journey in such a short time.

      Will I ever get there? You tell me.

       CHAPTER