From the archive (season 2): Dave Myers, hairy biker

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:05Hello friends, it's Grace here. Now, as some of you might know, Dave Myers, better known as one of the hairy bikers and a friend of Comfort Eating Podcast, passed away this week. He had been living with cancer for a few years. I know I'm not the only one floored by this news and I'm sending my condolences to his family, his friends and of course to Sai. I will always remember the day Dave Myers rang my front doorbell, walked into my lounge and came to talk to me for the pod. I can see him right now, how dapper he looked that day and how starstruck we all were. He was there and of course the stories he told us.

0:57I wanted to reshare Dave's episode with you now as he is so honest about his childhood and career and his friendship with Sai and I think this gives you a good idea of the extraordinary life he had. Ladies and gentlemen this is Dave Myers. Just a warning there is some strong language in this episode. I'm Grace Dent and this is Comfort Eating from The Guardian. A podcast where we pay homage to the lesser celebrated foods in life. Because even as a restaurant critic, I believe the food that matters most is often that snack you cobble together when you're curled upon the sofa. Each week, I ask my guest to lift the lid on what comfort foods have seen them through their lives.

1:49because you can tell a lot about a person from what they eat behind closed doors.

1:58Hello friends. New Year, same old kitchen, same old me, hopefully same old you, because you have been absolutely brilliant listeners so far. Happy New Year to you all. You find me here preparing a fantastic snack. Yes, it's the last of the mince pies. It has to be the last of the men's pies. And I'm having them with a large scoop of brandy butter. God, I love brandy butter. Why can't we have that every day? I am not entirely sure what day of the week it is, but I am aware that I have a guest who knows a thing or two about comfort food. And he's coming over today. It is hairy biker Dave Myers. The hairy bikers have been cooking on our screens for nearly 20 years which is not bad considering they were initially just looking for an excuse to eat food, ride motorbikes and in their words, chat bollocks.

2:57The pair's new cookbook, Everyday Winners, is out now. Being one half of the nation's best love bromances, I'm guessing you, like me, probably feel like you know Dave a bit already. but never underestimate the power of comfort eating. It always reveals a little more about people than you might expect. He seems like the loveliest man and I honestly can't wait to meet him. I mean, I am just spreading butter on a pie, really.

3:29Spreading butter, spreading boozy butter on a pie.

3:38Dave Myers welcome to Comfort Eton. Thanks very much Grace it's an honour to be here. This is a momentous occasion because you are my first Cumbrian. I am a Cumbrian. Yes. And you're my first Cumbrian on Comfort Eton. Yeah of course but you come from the capital whereas I was just from the deep south in Barrow and Furnace. You know Carlisle was somewhere we dreamed of aspiring to she's got a castle and cathedral and everything very much the manhattan of cumbria isn't it yes yeah you are the first person to be on comfort eating who actually cooks for a living i'm looking forward to seeing what ultimate comfort food that you've brought to share with me today what are you hiding at the moment i've smelled wonderful smells it feels like it's a complex snack it's it's not complex it was born out of inventiveness i think from when i was six or seven years old okay and i've got to admit i i can say a hand on my heart i've had it twice this week um for a breakfast and it's it's a bit anyway shall we yeah yeah unveil unveil the snack I have no idea what is in here.

4:51I wouldn't get too excited. I loved, when I was a kid, tinned tomatoes. We always used to have tinned tomatoes on toast. So, it's tinned tomatoes on toast with a couple of ashes of bacon, but I have a bit of marmite on the toast too. No. What? It's lovely. Oh, God. I think I discovered... Visually, it looks... It looks like something from a horror film because it's fleshy. The tinned tomatoes are oozing and then there is a slight whiff of yeast about it. Yeah, that's the marmite, you see. But the thing is, the tinned tomatoes, you get the juice in the bread. So really, you know you have a panzanella salad?

5:37Yes. Yeah, think of that when you eat it. I was foolishly trying to eat that with just one hand. and I saw the error in that right away. Hang on, I'm getting it. Excuse me. But I have tried to be really honest with this, you know, because I work in a food world like you, and we both had some of the most wonderful food in the world, but this is really what I find comforting. Do you realise that all the time you're talking, I am just stuffing this into my face? I know, I suddenly realise if I'm eating, I can't talk. It's actually delicious. Yeah, but what you have to do with the tomatoes, and I did discover this as a young boy.

6:15If you put the tomatoes into the pan, just say, oh, there's too much juice. So I suddenly realised if I left them to cook for a while, and I used to do the cooking from when I was little, they would get thicker and more tasty, which, of course, is reduction. But now I must admit I'm on a can of San Mazzano tomatoes and not the super cheap ones that my mother used to have. Does it have to be white bread? No. I like a nice piece of sourdough, to be fair. But again, you know, we've once tasted with years, improve with style. A bit of whole meal will do all right. That isn't actually proper delicious snack.

6:48You've actually booked the trend of some of the absolutely disgusting things I've eaten over the last few episodes. Thank you. That's it. That's a great compliment.

7:06Dave, I understand that you were somewhat of a surprise addition to your parents' lives. Yes. I mean, my mum went to the doctor and it was thought she had an ovarian cyst. Oh, bloody hell. And he was called Dr. Morrison, this Scottish GP. And he said, Mrs. Myers, this is the biggest bloody ovarian cyst I've ever seen. You're pregnant. And she was, because she was 41 and she'd never thought she couldn't have children. I mean, that's it. You were classed as a very geriatric mother. Yeah, well, not geriatric. It was my dad because he was his second wife. He was quite a bit older than my mum, so my dad was 55.

7:45But he was brilliant. He was a brilliant dad because, of course, he had time for me and he could retire. And actually, he did a little bit of cooking. But yes, so I was a surprise to both of them, really. I mean, I think I was conceived. After the war, they started going on holiday and they went to Switzerland, which was a huge thing for the pair of them from Barrow. And they flew in a Douglas, Dakota. I've still got pictures of them. and they were going to do the grand tour of Italy the next year, but instead it was, I popped up. So, you know, I always think there's something for Swiss about me, really.

8:21You've written about what your mum was like during your early childhood in Barrow and Furnace. She sounds like a real vivacious character. Yeah, she was a big lady. She was sort of, you know, no, no, she wasn't big tall. She was quite small, five foot three, but quite broad. as the sort of lady that Alan Bennett describes as a lady with a leg at each corner. And that was my mum. And during the war, she worked as a crane driver in the shipyard. Yeah. And I think she got straffed one night and that was it. She gave the crane driving up until, you know, after the war, she went and worked up in the lakes in a hotel in Grasmere.

8:58And then she came back and she drove cranes till I was born, really. See, the ladies became crane drivers because it said they had a gentler touch. Right. So they kept the ladies on after the war. Yeah. And so the ladies were surprised, because they'd all had their kids, and my mum, I was the first. So I used to knit me baby clothes in the cabs and with pictures of the cranes on from the shipyard and Vickers Armstrong. So I had these really cool jumpers when I was a kid. That must have been amazing, though, to feel like your mother was the kind of person that can drive a crane. Yeah, yeah, my dad was a paper maker, so obviously he was a sensitive one.

9:35Yeah. But it was in a mill, it was a factory. I was looking at something you said about your mum cooking plate pie. Yeah. And, you know, when I read that, I was so happy that somebody else knew what plate pie was because it's something that my gran used to cook. And I never, ever hear it mentioned. So just to explain for anyone listening, it's basically just a pie, but it is made in a plate. So you need almost half of the contents, don't you? It's quite shallow pie. That's all it is. It's shallow and wide, so it looks generous. Yeah. So I always think of, when I think of my grandmother, I think of her almost making it with just one hand because she didn't even have to think about it.

10:20No. I think a lot of northern households, they always had, it was a dinner plate, inevitably a thick one off the market. Yes. And it was chipped and obviously it had been baked, so it was quite brown and unsavoury looking. But most homes had one, and that was for your pie. The plate was buttered and then the pastry went on. And then it was basically savoury mince. It was mince meat, maybe an onion, just cooked and then filled on the plate with a top on. But the beauty of it is, and Si used to have it as well over in Newcastle, but they call it a cut and come again pie. Because you take a slice, but you want more.

10:53You cut and come again. I love that. Yeah. Cut and come again. Yeah. And you know when you can't stop, I used to be terrible because I was a fat child. There's no getting around it in polite terms. But greedy, really, and round. I used to get to a point where I'd had my designated portion of pie. Yeah. And then I'd just have a slither. Then the slither would grow. Yeah. And in the end, I'd get to the point of no return. And then you just think, well, I'm in it now. Yeah, I'm in deep. So things change very suddenly when you're eight years old and your mum is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Yeah.

11:30Your dad has to take early retirement from his job at the paper mill. so how do you and your dad adapt to that it was it was hard it was very hard you know we're in a two up two down in barrow so the idea of stair lifts don't exist and this is why i feel such a strong compassion for i was a young carer by default but when you're a kid it just happens you don't question it you just are you just have to mug in don't you yeah and i think sadly i don't think things have improved much these days you know if anything there was community then that helped but on the food front I mean well my dad of course he'd been in industry industry all his life we used to have time brand tin mints yes smash and faro's marifat peas in a can do you know I love a marifat pea but I came on one time from school I think about three years this was a staple diet and he's there in his slippers and he said I see I look down at this mess and I said what is it and what he'd done is it mixed the three ingredients together and he said I've made a risotto even then I thought that's not a risotto dad something's got to change but by then I was doing the shopping for the house um so that gave me control because my dad was I say because he was that much older so hang on how old were you when you had to first set off down the shops with a 12 a list that you'd made yourself yeah 12 13 so remember it was when the the big supermarket had opened by then we moved to a council estate yeah because it was on the ground floor and we had the wheelchairs and stuff yeah that did make life easier but remember there's a superstar opened so you go down with your budget and try and yeah get a tenner and i could buy what i wanted i remember i came back with a pizza once nobody knew what a pizza was but it was it really was the worst cardboard disc with not really quite good tinned tomatoes and grated cheese on and of course my parents were just like I'm not eating this.

13:27So you must have started to cook for both of them. What was on the menu? I mean the first time I cooked for my dad was when it was when we first realised she had multiple sclerosis. I was about seven or eight and my dad was on a night shift and I heard a thump and mum had gone to bed in the afternoon. I was just playing downstairs in front of the telly and I heard a thump and mum was on the bedroom floor and she couldn't move and we didn't know what was wrong with her and I thought, hmm, I don't know. She was very calm and she said, no, it's all right, your dad will be home at 10 o 'clock. I just thought it was nothing for my dad's tea.

13:59So I remember I cooked him a cheese and potato pie and I found the recipe in this cookbook that had come with the gas cooker and the gas cooker must have bought that just after the war. Yeah. And I made this cheese and potato pie. It was funny, I worked on a thing and I went back home and they found that cookbook and I did actually cook that pie again. so were there times when you and your dad ever got out of the house together yeah well before my mom got really really ill yeah he always had a motorbike he was one of those northern chaps who a motorcycle was a mode of transport the thought of it never crossed his mind he'd own a car so he always had the motorbike and as i said because he was older and he retired early it was great it was the best dad i always say like some of my mates are having children late in life and they have a huge crisis of confidence and I'm going no no do it it's brilliant because my dad was better than anybody else's yeah when he when he was 65 I was still on the back of the motorbike he was taking me fishing yeah and and shooting and well we're not shooting I'm not talking like the posh people I'm talking about trying to you know nail a rabbit in a field

15:18So you were always really a carer and going into your teenage years, you've never really been carefree. You've always been caring for someone. Did that affect the kind of teenager you became? Yes, yeah. I had alopecia as well, which is quite ironic seeing I was known as a hairy biker. I had no hair, no eyebrows. It started when I was eight, funnily enough. And I was, you know, kind of, it was really, really bald. You know, he starts off with alopecia areata, so it's kind of... Where did it start? On your hair? Oh, it's here, there and everywhere. So it's not like you're going bald, bald. And that was the time before it was cool to be bald.

15:59And I think my only role model was Yul Brynner in The King and I. I think that the more ill somebody gets, the more... the harder it is to look after them, the more work it takes. So, and it was both of your parents that were very ill. Yeah, well, what happens? I came home from school one day. My dad had had a stroke. Well, was he in the living room? Yeah, he was just in a chair and he was just like over on one side. And my mum was sitting here because obviously nobody could take her to the loo. So it was all, well, again, I walked into chaos. I was in the sixth form at school. I've always been quite good at school and I've done quite well.

16:38And I just walked into chaos. And after about a week, I was looking after both of them. It was a district nurse came for the regular visit. I did phone a doctor and the doctor told me to give my father aspirins and put him to bed. That was it. And I was on my own for a week. I didn't go into school because obviously I couldn't. And then the social services came and they said, one of your parents can go into hospital. Which one do you feel you can better look after? And I knew my mum wouldn't get better. I knew my dad would. So I thought, my mum really? And she didn't get, well, she went into hospital and never came out.

17:14And she lived there for almost five years, you know. Hard decision, really, for a 17-year-old to make. An impossible decision. Yeah, yeah. My dad did get better, so he was functioning and, you know, he understood. But actually, you know, when you think back, it was his wife, you know. And to me, I was just surviving and trying to do what I could. It was hard. Was there anything at all that gave you happiness? Oh, my mates. My mates. I had some great friends at school. Funnily enough, the kids of the year above me, through the art department, it was always, we had this amazing art teacher called Mr Eaton, and he was very flamboyant.

17:54It was a northern boy's grammar, and he was the one with the red midget sports car, the matching ties and everything, and he could draw. It was amazing. And there was kind of like a chap called Graham who was older than me, a year older. He went off to Goldsmiths to do art. I followed in his wake to Goldsmiths, and there was a third member, actually, who went to Goldsmiths, all Mr Eaton's boys. But within that, they were always, you know what it's like in the north, like the pub culture and everything, you know, working class town. So, you know, they would take me for a pint. But you needed a pint.

18:28Yeah, but I had friends like that. Yeah. And actually they were always really, really supportive. And so that was it really. What did you eat together? Well, we still have a friend of mine, Pete, who actually became a director of British Telecom. So we kind of did all right as Northern lads. But Pete, we used to cook these. There's always been a Chinese food culture in Barrow, you know, the Chinese takeaways. And some of them are pretty good. You know, it wasn't all kind of terrible food and packed with onions and monosodium glutamate. And I think it was£1.30 for a takeaway with your fried rice.

19:04So Pete and I used to do our curries. So when we come back from the pub, which could have been everything, like a bag of rice, we used to make them with tuna fish or sausages. No, hang on a minute. There is no such thing as tuna fish curry. There really isn't in our house. I suppose it was like, but then it was curry powder. Yeah. So I suppose the French would call it, you know. They call it, well, the French have a really fancy word for curry powder, isn't it? Like va de vin or something, va de vin. Au curry. Yeah. You know, so this should be tono o 'ryo curry. You see, it sounds a lot more delicious now.

19:42Yeah, but we used to charge them 30 pence for it. So it was a winner, wasn't it, when more money to spend on beer. Right, hang on, wind back. You were selling homemade tuna fish curry to who to? People that were... Well, our mates, you see, because we used to£1.30 for a takeaway. So this was a bargain at 30 pence. Now, in those days, we're talking about four pints to the pound. Yeah. So really, it's a win-win. So you've got an extra four pints, and plus you've got your carbohydrate at the end of the evening. Hang on, were they coming to your house and eating it? Yeah, they could come to my house, you see, because my parents weren't functioning.

20:17So this... You know, you talk to the best of adversity. So as long as you kept the noise down, they were out the way. This is it. Every cloud has a silver... Silver lining, yeah. ...has a silver tuna curry-flavoured lining. Yeah, and now Pete and I are in our 60s. We did meet up to repeat the experience. But the thing is, because he's been a keen cook, and obviously what I do for a living, we really couldn't capture that authentic naivety of what we used to serve up to our mates. It's just a bit too fancy, really.

21:03so you've got all this responsibility and horrible things that have happened but you're still really looking ahead to the future and you still apply to study fine art at one of the most prestigious places in the country. You go to Goldsmiths, University of London. What did you actually know about London? Nothing. I used to, I say my world was, my friends, it was Graham, who was the most amazing painter. And I say, he's still, you know, he's actually made a living out of his brushes. So I kind of followed in Graham's wake. But I remember the first time I came, so I used to smoke a pipe with tobacco and so I'd just sit there thinking I was a pre-raphaelite you know we're obsessed with the pre-raphaelites Holman Hunt and Rosetti and there was three of us we used to go to the walker and look at the exhibitions so obviously the pipe came with it so when I was painting I thought she's going to make it better you know so anyway I turned up in London for me interview I had my portfolio over my arm which is kind of homemade you know with like some kind of strappage over my shoulder and I can remember I had this red denim jacket, green corduroy trousers, a pair of red kickers.

22:14Hang on a minute. And a scarf. It's red and you've got green corduroy trousers. This is quite the outfit. So I went to Goldsmiths, got out at Newcross, had my interview. So I got a place. I think it was something like 3 ,000 applied and I was in the intake. It feels like you weren't intimidated. No, ignorance. It's happened twice in my life, actually, that I've been completely ignorant of circumstance and it's helped. Yeah, you didn't really know what you were walking into to realise it was a massive deal. No, I just wanted to be with my mate Graham in London. It sounded great because, you see, a goldsmith, it was the freest art school in the country.

22:50Yes. So, you know, ultimately you could do what you wanted. But you've gone from being a carer, and I've done caring as well, and I know that your time is so regimented. The days actually fly by pretty quickly because everything needs to be done at certain times. You've got so much responsibility and then you're at Goldsmiths and you're free. Yes. The grant was actually pretty decent. And I was working in the summers in the steelworks in Barrow. So I was okay. It was good. I was very nervous. I still had no hair then, which we found quite intimidating really. So did you look like a skinhead at this point?

23:31I mean, did you shave it all off? I shaved off what I had left, yeah. No, I looked like a big embryo, Grace. I had no eyebrows and eyelashes. I wasn't going to pull. Do you know what I mean? It's like my mate Graham, the one I'd followed in his wake, was devastatingly handsome. Was he really handsome? Yeah, he still is, God love him. But no, at that point, I was like his mate, you know. And we shared a flat in Peckham, 56 Asylum Road. It was£9 a week each. We shared a room and there we set up to paint. And did you cook together? yeah we did there was there was a a turkish cafe down the road that we discovered and that was epic you know like spaghetti bolognese that really was made from meat and it had some degree of herbs and spicing i just thought oh this is this was a game changer so really the grant didn't last long so i kind of and then of course the chinese food i go to soho and so that's when i started really cooking because i could buy the ingredients at the supermarkets in soho i could bring them back and so I did finish the first term absolutely the 200 pound overdraft and I'm about two stone so what was it like you've had this amazing time in London and then you have to go back to Barrow and you work in the steel yard that must be a huge change again it was it was good though again the camaraderie my uncle was the foreman there my uncle Harry and so I was in the building department and um I loved it I actually loved it the people were brilliant did you turn up in the tartan trousers with the pipe though no i turned up in my body i think what i did do though i turned up in dr martin boots and um this was still the the and i'm there you know me me ox blood dr martin's and i have me over all they give you a boiler suit and then what did they do they put me on a cradle you shut the furnaces that big electric arc furnace maybe about 10 15 meters across and they lift the lid off well obviously all the hot metal and the bricks inside it's it's roasting to say the least yeah so there's two of you go down in a cradle and you have to my job was to hold the big chisel while this it was big brian it was called hit that chisel and you cut the steel horses but you're on a metal plate that sounds scary it was but the men there were so caring you know all i can say is in terms of community they were brilliant blokes except of course i had dr martin's on and why wasn't i wearing clogs i thought this is too much a northern cliche to wear clogs for work.

25:57I thought, come on, since then. I thought that was a cliche. I didn't actually think that the clogs were... Yeah, they do. They keep your feet going. My Dr. Martin's caught fire. Well, they just melted, the soles. So that was it. So when they'd finished laughing at me, there were like gumdrops on my feet. And, you know, you take your packed lunches and stuff. And there was a stove there, not that there was much cooking going on. There's a lot of rice pudding straight from the tin. You can't beat it. No, it's all right. There was, yeah. Yeah, there was a case of bullying. There was one fight there once, and I did see somebody hit with a tin of rice pudding as a weapon, kind of ambrosia in the mush.

26:33But no, it was nice, and Steelworks breakfasts were really inspiring, you know. Because I came back from art school being lardy and full of curry. Yeah. All manner of things. What's a Steelworks breakfast? You know, like the black puddings you see in the butcher's windows, the rings? Yes. Yeah, it's a whole one of those. Yeah. A whole thing of Cumberland sausage, a couple of eggs, tinned tomatoes um and then you know it's just everything and loads of toast and of course you're working um and again in the steelworks you always got access to cold milk for some reason but it's nothing tasty better just a pint of i would never drink milk now like that but a pint of ice cold milk or a quart of ice cold milk but i think i think for me it was belonging and after what i've been been through you know it was belonging and there's some extent of care even if it's a bit rough and ready, they're still looking after you.

27:24Even if I was doing a horrible job, there'd be somebody there keeping an eye out for me. A lot of those traditions were very valid and gave people a decent quality of life.

27:39One of the facts I love about you is that you worked as a make-up artist for many years. And I often wonder how this motorbike-loving turned steel worker in the early 80s that you end up painting faces at the BBC. So could you do my makeup? That's what I'm... Oh, God, yes. You could. Oh, yeah, I used to. Yeah. Interesting. Oh, God, well, 23 years, Grace, yeah. There you go. I got nominated for two RTS Awards as a makeup artist and two RTS Awards as a turn on the telly. But no, I was... I love it. I was working as a car park attendant, as an advert for training makeup artists. and again there was thousands applied and they took 10 of us on and they were looking for people with fine art degrees it's the time that they'd done i claudius with derek jacobi and the artistic side was becoming more and more important but i didn't realize he had to do hair as well at the time i was living with a french au pair in blackheath i applied for two jobs one was a trainee picture frame restore at national gallery and one was the trainee makeup artist at the bieb and i remember before the interview that the french au pair was sharing the flat with i got how to tip a handbag on the table and go through what the bits and pieces were.

28:49Because he said you'd have to do a straight makeup, an ageing makeup, and then a piece of hair work. I don't know. Again, I was saying before, I had no idea what was expected. So I turned up at the television centre with the contents of a handbag in my head of being from the steel. And one of my references, by the way, was from British Steel Corporation.