Gordon Ramsay by Neil Simpson Read Free Book Online Page A

and be measured against the best in his new industry. Back in Bridgwater, Gordon had a few more hurdles to cross before he got on to the HND course in catering management he was interested in. All of them were about the way other people would treat his decision. The main one, not surprisingly, involved his father – the man who years ago had put extra salt on his son’s porridge ‘so as not to produce a wuss’.
    Even after so many disappointments, so many examples of how not to behave, Gordon still felt he needed his father’s blessing. He never got it. ‘Dad was a very stubborn man and for him it was always football or nothing. He’dhad a tough time with his own father, a butcher. And when I tested the water by saying, “Dad, I get excited by being in a boisterous kitchen, I want to be a chef,” he flipped his lid. He was a very macho man, the toughest, and he thought catering was for poofs. It was one thing to tell his mates that his son was playing for Rangers, but quite another to say I was training to be a cook. “Stay away from catering,” he said to me at one point. “It’s girly and effeminate.” I don’t think he ever really forgave me when I ignored him.’
    Unfortunately, the same message was coming from many of Gordon’s friends as well. And it was coming through especially loud and clear from his former teammates at Rangers. ‘I knew it would be hard to go from wearing that amazing strip to putting a pinny on,’ he said. ‘But I never thought it was girly, even though Ally McCoist and a whole load of the big-name players said I was a poof.’
    With the decision made, Gordon enrolled on his course, swore he would make the best of it and got an immediate boost. ‘The day our lecturer started screaming at us all because we weren’t showing enough interest, I was hooked. I also got excited when I found out the amount of freedom involved around food – each and every season is different, each and every customer is different. It became my obsession. My escape from watching Mum and Dad waste their lives and witnessing him trying to destroy her mentally. I had no idea I was going to be good at it but I loved it from day one.’
    Customers, however, may have had different ideas about his suitability for the job – and Gordon is happy to admit that his first ventures weren’t entirely successful. ‘Iremember one day I made apple pie to be served with Sunday lunch. The pastry had shrunk – a bit of a disaster. I made mint sauce but by mistake used washing-up liquid instead of vinegar – a total disaster.’
    Even so, after a year’s study, he gained his HND in catering management while working part-time in a small country house hotel just outside Stratford. He was on his way – and people who knew him realised he was going to move fast. William Murray, immediately nicknamed Minty by Gordon, was at Banbury Technical College with him and also cooked with him at the army barracks at Folkestone in the summer of 1984. He says Gordon had long since got to grips with what you had to achieve to succeed in the restaurant world. Second best was never going to be enough for him, so working away in a distinctly average restaurant was never going to be on the menu. ‘Even then Gordon made it clear he wanted nothing less than his own place with three Michelin stars. He was quite prepared to put in the 16-plus-hour days and take the abuse young chefs get in order to fulfil his ambitions.’
    But William admits there were never any guarantees that it would work out for Gordon. ‘He was a bit of a nutter even then and I knew he was either going to end up in prison or make a million. I’m just pleased it was the latter,’ he told the BBC years later.
    Other people were also pleased to see their faith in Gordon repaid that summer. The local branch of the Round Table had stepped in to help when Gordon realised he couldn’t afford the chef’s clothes, knives and other kit he needed for his year at college.