Si King, cook

0:00Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast from BBC Radio 4. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury, that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music's shorter than on the original broadcast, but you can find a version with longer music tracks on BBC Sounds. Listeners will also get access to episodes 28 days earlier than everyone else. I hope you enjoy listening.

0:46My cast away this week is the TV presenter and cook, Cy King. One half of the phenomenally popular duo, the Hairy Bikers, Cy, along with his on-screen partner and real-life best friend Dave, cooked their way around the world with over 30 successful series and almost as many hit cookbooks. In the sometimes alpha male world of TV cooking shows, the hairy bikers were a welcome change, epitomising a male friendship that prioritised fun but also allowed for vulnerability. Viewers and bikers took them into their hearts. When Dave died from cancer two years ago, some 40 ,000 bikers joined a ride from London to his native barrow-in furnace to pay tribute, with many more lining the streets to wave them on.

1:30Cy was born in a pit village near Gateshead. During his teens, motorbikes came into his life, along with rock and roll. He was a talented drummer and began volunteering at a local arts centre. He got a break in TV with a role behind the scenes on the kids' show Biker Grove. A few years later, he met Dave, then a make-up artist, during their lunch break on a Catherine Cookson drama. Soon the pair were cooking and riding together and decided to pitch a show of their own. He says, the greatest expression of love is what's on a plate. Cy King, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Thank you. It's absolutely wonderful to be here.

2:06You've made my mum very proud. Oh, I'm so pleased. Well, I can't wait to talk about your mum because she sounds like she was phenomenal. But I want to start with that quote and a bit of love on a plate, please, Cy. When you're cooking for someone that you love, you care about, what does that look like? oh look it's the epitome of care there's a an old islamic saying i won't try and pronounce but it is about that you can taste the love and the food that was instilled in me from being very very very young you know if you're going to cook something you cook it with your heart and you cook with your soul and don't cook with a bad mood because you're bad mood no no because you'll taste it you'll taste it you'll taste that anger and it's actually true i think i've made cakes like that before.

2:52It is true. You kind of go, oh, I don't taste the same as I did it the last time. Oh, well, that's because I was in a bad mood. Si, obviously, we're going to talk about Dave today and we're speaking quite close to the anniversary of his death. He was your best friend on and off screen. How did you mark the day? I was actually with my sister in Italy. I just took myself off in a little quiet moment because he doesn't stop being your best mate just because he's not here. And I had a moment of just remembering with kindness and fondness, you know, because grief comes in all sorts of different shapes and sizes and it's as varied emotionally as it is as the character and personality of the individual that's feeling it.

3:35So it's always a mix of emotion. Grief is never linear, which is why it's so difficult to cope with on occasion. And it never leaves you. There is always that sense of loss. The first, we did two day of day motorcycle rides, which were just phenomenal. And this is official police figures at the first one that we did. A wonderful, wonderful man and Dave's widow actually organised because I was at work. And we had 46 ,000 motorcycles. The tail of the motorcycles was 35 miles long. Oh, my God. and we had 175 ,000 people lining the route from the Ace Cafe to Barrow and Furnace. And it was an amazing expression of fellowship and community and actually what an honour.

4:28And he would have... It's that, again, it's that mix of emotion, isn't it? So frustrating that he wasn't there to see it, but he would have absolutely loved it. He would have been like, yeah. Would he have been right at the front? Oh, yeah, 100%. He would have loved it. Well, he was right at the front with me and Lil, and Jason Woodcock did an amazing job in his team to just pull it together. It was a fantastic accolade to a great man. Dave and I rode 650 ,000 miles on a motorcycle. Oh, man. And I worked it out, actually, and I went through it, I think, because I mentioned it in Dave's liturgy, and it was just the most remarkable thing.

5:05It's to the moon and back. Well, Si, we've got so much to talk about, and I know that music is a huge passion of yours and that narrowing your discs down has been a real challenge. It's been like the United Nations Council in our house. It's been like, what should I play, lads? All my sons are like, I'm on the phone going, what should I want? I mean, I don't know where to start. It's more of a family Desert Island discs because I'd miss them if I was stuck there. So it's all about remembering family. Well, let's dive in. Tell us about your first choice. I mean it had to be from the town side It's by Lindisfarne And it's called A Winter Song And I just think Alan and the boys Describe beautifully the weather up there Because you're on wearside aren't you You're a wearside lass So you know when that north east wind comes in And it cuts you to the absolute bone And it was a metaphor for the structure of this song really That it was about the injustices of the world even then it struck a chord with me when it was first released because my brother and sister had it and it's never left me and it's really about just taking a breath and just having a little bit of empathy the track is about empathy in my view anyway

6:23When winter's shadowy fingers First pursue you down the street And your boots no longer lie About the cold around your feet Till you spare a thought for someone Whose passage is complete Linda's fun and winter's song. So, Psy King, let's go back to the beginning, shall we? You were born in Kibblesworth near Gatehead, 1966, the youngest by quite some margin of three. in a very close-knit community, a pit village. And I know that your maternal grandfather, he'd been a winder at the pit, which is a really important job. What did it involve? Well, basically, my grandfather was instrumental in getting the lads down into the seam safely without cutting them enough.

7:17And by the very nature of that role, you were a focal point for the community because it was all about the men's safety and getting them into the seam. That trust. That trust and being able to walk out into the seam as opposed to having to crawl out in a five-inch gap because, you know, the winder hadn't got it right. But interestingly, your dad was considered quite exotic, wasn't he? Because he hadn't grown up there. No, no. My dad was Cockney. He was a Londoner born and bred. He was from Lambeth, born in the sound of the bow bells. He came up to the North East because he'd just come from a six-month tour of duty with the Royal Navy during the Second World War and he'd gone home to see his mum.

8:01His mum had been killed and his community decimated in the Blitz. So he then turned round, went back to his commissioning officer and said, I haven't got anything left, what do I do? He said, well, go up to Newcastle, there's a port of refuge for the Arctic convoys and you're on minesweepers. and it was there during that commission that he met my mum. After his first tour into the Art Lake, going surely for a bit that met my mum, he saw this songbird singing at the Oxford with some of the big bands that used to tour for the war effort. I didn't know him very well because he wasn't... He wasn't well when you were little and he'd had an accident on board, hadn't he?

8:49He slipped down a bulkhead down the hatch. he damaged his kidneys during the fall that injury and high blood pressure was eventually what killed him so that damage kind of progressed because he was he was around until you were about eight right yeah that's right but he wasn't well and did that impact your relationship with him oh definitely i mean it you know dad was he was one of the first kidney transplant patients in the country and um i remember a big hoo-ha and and you know an ambulance coming with police outriders in a squad car and Dad being rushed into hospital. And then he had the operation.

9:26So it was a double transplant that he had, wasn't it? Yeah, it was. The first double transplant in the country? One of them. I think they'd done it twice before. And because the anti-rejection drugs weren't as sophisticated, obviously, as we have now, and the techniques weren't as sophisticated, I can't remember exactly, but I think it was about a 72-hour window whereby the kidneys were going to work or not. But unfortunately we got to about 60 hours and then his body just rejected them and unfortunately we were all rushed into the hospital to say our goodbyes. And as an eight-year-old, I had absolutely no idea what was going on.

10:05Do you remember that? Vividly, yeah, yeah. I remember when you have an experience like that, when you're so young and so vulnerable, it stays with you. and it is that stark contrast between a young life and death. He was an amazing man. And the next track that we're going to play, my sister at the time, when she was young, she contracted polio, which is why Bamboura Beach and the North East Coast, it's our spiritual home as a family because my dad and my mum walked my sister up and down the beach in the freezing cold throughout all the seasons. And I remember, and my mum always used to say, he said, oh, no, he'd get up in the morning, he'd say, no, daughter of mine's not going to be able to walk.

10:43That's what they did for a good lady who was to strengthen her legs. Did it work? It did. She ran cross-country for Northumberland and she was an Irish dancer, which is where this next track comes from, because of me dad's wake. I remember all the lads from the townside Irish playing this track in the front room. This is Boil the Breakfast Early by the Chieftains. And to hear this and songs like it in your front room and you see your sister dancing in a green dress and stuff. I was like, what was going on here? It was amazing.

11:47Boil the breakfast early by the Chieftains. Life obviously must have changed immeasurably after losing your dad. I know that you said you and your mum, Stella, grieved through food. Tell me more about that. I'm glad to see you laughing. Yeah, we did. We did. We grieved at the stovetop, really. She was one of those women of her age that were enormously unfulfilled, fiercely bright, incredibly applied, incredibly well read. That extended into what you were cooking as well, because your dad, with all of his travels in the Navy, he developed quite a kind of sophisticated palate for the time and then would bring things home for her to experiment with.

12:28He would, you know, because after my dad left the Royal Navy, he went into the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and then the Merchant Service. So I was, like, in Shanghai and stuff. And my mum always used to complain. I mean, we always used to have a laugh about it. But she used to say, you know, she said all the other sailor's wives get knock-off nylons and dodgy Chanel perfume. She said I get bloody leaves and twigs. And cinnamon and beer. Yeah, and, like, star anise. So what was she making with it? What was on the menu? You'd have, like, lemongrass, but you'd have it, like, in a Madeira cake. Bear in mind, this is in the 50s.

13:05Exactly, because it's not like you could just... There's no way to go for that. And then me dad would say, well, I had it with beef, Stella, and it was quite hot. So I was like, well, I said, OK, well, we'll put a bit more pepper in than normal, and we'll put this star anise in, and then... Well, was it with a gravy, Graeme? Aye, but it wasn't that gravy. I think it had coconut in it, and she goes, oh, yeah. So you weren't your way towards the curry, but you haven't quite got there yet. I haven't got there yet. And so when you were, you know, when you'd lost your dad and you were at the stovetop together, is this when you started to learn to cook properly then?

13:42Yeah, I think it was definitely that. It was the way of mum showing her love and care and you're all right, son, you're all right. Because by that point, my brother and sister had left to get on with our own life. So mum and I were a really tight team, you know. And that's how she would show security. the problem with that was that at every age I was the same in stone so at 8 I was 8 stone at 9 I was 9 stone at 10 I was 10 stone and I was like I don't know what to do with myself and she was worried about it because she took you to Weight Watchers would have been back then she did yeah Weight Watchers and it was great because I was the only kid there because I was going to the big school and my mum didn't want us to be bullied you know And it was brilliant because you'd have the way in, they'd go, hey, our Simon, you've lost two pounds.

14:34Hey, well done, son. Give our Simon a clap. So there'd be all the girls who'd clap. And then as I was going out, they'd go, hey, well done, son. Here's a Mars bar. So you'd be like, mum, I've got a Mars bar. Give us that. Will you stop giving him stuff? So it was that. People really hadn't cottoned on to the emotional kind of cycle. No, but it's an expression of love and care. What do you do with this little lad who's just in, who's clearly not, they're all grannies and middle-aged women. I was the only bloke there. And how did you feel about it? I mean, what was going on with you at that point?

15:07How were you getting on at school and all of that? I was completely disinterested. I just didn't want to be there. In retrospect, I think that I was the only man in the house and I took on all of that responsibility quite quietly. So you felt you needed to look after your mum? That was it. and it started and ended there. And any time that I spent away from that focus and time was a waste. Even at school? Even at school. Because at school I was a fat lad, so it wasn't a really particularly happy place for me to be. So I just thought, well, where am I happy? Oh, yeah, mass, being at church and going to St Joseph's, and, you know, yeah, that's relatively happy.

15:46So you were an altar boy at church, and your mum's faith was very important to her, wasn't it? It was, yeah. Her faith was important. Si, on that note, I think we should have some music. Tell us about the next track. Well, this is the Liturgy of St Anthony, and it's a Gregorian chant. I hope Jane's listening, because I used to drive you, you're not putting that on again, are you? And I love it. Listen to it. It's a remarkable, remarkable piece of music, and so skilled and so elemental and old.

16:28CHOIR SINGS

16:45The introit from the Liturgy of St Anthony, sung by the Lisbon Gregorian Choir. So, Psy King, we've talked about two of your great loves, food and music, but I think we should address your third, motorbikes. How did they come into your life? when my dad was poorly, I was shipped off because he had kidney dialysis and all that sort of stuff. Not that he was at the house, but he went in the hospital to have that. And I was shipped off to my Auntie Hilda and Uncle George's who lived in a place called Lamesley. And Lamesley was on a notorious crossroads. And all the lads would come from the Team Valley past my Auntie Hilda's, right at the bottom of the Team Valley.

17:26Then he'd hit a crossroads and then they'd fall off their motorcycles or be hit by a car or whatever. So my Aunty Hilda, and I remember this very vividly, was going, those sheets are worn out, son. Get the scissors and then just cut them into bandages. Because it was a regular occurrence, you know. It was like three or four times a week. So she would keep bandages? She would keep bandages, yeah. For the accident? So what inevitably would happen is my Aunty Hilda would patch them up until the ambulance arrived, and my Uncle George would take the bikes and stick them next to the outside netty. So there was always bits and bobs around to tinker with, and my Uncle George had a great garage because it had a pit in it.

18:01My Uncle George would go, oh, yeah, son, have a go at this. This one's running. This one's still running. So my first riding a motorcycle was actually a scooter. There was just bits missing out of it and everything. An unfortunate rider had just come off of. Exactly. I remember riding it down the back lane and thinking, I love, and I must have been about nine. I love this. This is great. And then I'd quite quickly... It's so North East Uncle-coded, I can't even tell you. It is. So then as the motorcycles came, my Uncle George would go, oh, no, it's all right, we'll just, never you mind, because we'll keep that, you know.

18:37There wasn't anything like insurance companies there going, oh, I'll have to see if we can fix it. I'm never you mind, son, you can come and pick it up when you like. So my Uncle George and I would tinker with these motorcycles in his shed and then straighten wheels and he'd be hitting them with rubber hammer mallets and hide mallets to straighten the wheels out and stuff. and then I'd just get off and ride them. And when you were older, I think one of your first passengers was your mum when she'd done her shopping. I used to ride through the estate and down through St Lord Lawson's Field and then down onto Bertley Main Street to pick my mum up with her shopping.

19:10So she's got all the... How did that work with her? So there's two of you on the bike? There's two of us on the bike and one helmet. Who's got the helmet on? Your mum? My mum's got the helmet on, yeah. So we had two bags of shopping on the front indicator stems, two bags of shopping on the rear indicator stems and me mum holding two bags of shopping with this massive open-faced helmet on and it was wobbling about and all that sort of stuff. But we also... Should we insert a don't try this at home here just for listeners? No, try it at home, it'd be great. Not the views of the BBC. No, definitely not the views of the BBC.

19:43But we always used to have to run the gamut of a police officer in Berkeley called Ginger Eric and it became a cat and mouse game where me mum would go. I think that's Ginger Eric because I didn't have any wing mirrors either. So she's on the back looking round. So she's on the back looking round. She's going, it's him again. It's Ginger Eric. I was like, oh man, you're joking. So we'd go across the all-weather pitch of the comprehensive school and up through the grass verge and to this day, he never caught us. He was still free. He didn't like me and me mum very much. He thought we were way too avant-garde.

20:15And obviously music was always a feature of family life for you, as you've told us, but you were making music yourself by this point, I think. Yeah, it was a way of supplementing income and doing up and spraying motorcycles and all that sort of stuff. It just sort of gave me mum a helping hand out. So you were drumming? I was drumming and I cut my teeth in the pubs and clubs of the North East. Well, let's have some music on that note, I think, Si. Time for disc number four. What's next? There's quite a funny story to this. It's a track by Judy Zook called Stay With Me Till Dawn. So as I was playing around the pubs and clubs, girls started to get interested with the drummer which is a first for anything anyway I got a girlfriend and this track I lost my virginity to and I had occasion in this very building oh no no it wasn't it was in Wogan House the old Radio 2 the old Radio 2 so I'm there at Radio 2 and then this vision comes through the double doors and it's Judy Zook and I said to him hello Judy it's I lost my virginity to you I mean not you I mean you know the track and I was a complete gibbering idiot she said I was so lovely it was such a lovely moment.

21:29Did she know who you were was she? Yeah she went oh I love the shows so this is a track that I lost my virginity to as a drummer But I need you tonight Need you tonight Yes, I need you tonight Need you tonight And I'll show you a sunset If you'll stay with me till dawn

22:10Judy Zook and Stay With Me Till Dawn. Si, you'd taken A-levels in, I think it was communication studies, politics and economics. Yeah. And after leaving college, you continued gigging. Yeah. At that point, you joined a band called Sian. Yes, Sian, yes. And it was while you were with them in Newcastle at a gig that you met your future wife, Jane. Yeah, we did this gig. It was for Blade and Racers. It was a fantastic occasion. and I just saw this woman approach and met her a couple of times but I didn't think she was arriving and then she said, do you want to come up to my mum and dad's caravan and do I want water?

22:48And I said, yeah, do. And I went up the caravan and that was it. The two of you, yeah, you fell in love pretty quickly and then she got pregnant with your son, I think within a year, wasn't it? Yeah, she did. So you were 22? 22, yeah. How did you feel? Absolutely terrified. I was hustling. I was a gigging musician and I didn't know what to do. But at that point, I thought, God, dear me, I've got to get my act together. So I went and drove the minibus because I thought, I'd better get some money in because my girlfriend's pregnant. Baby's on the way, yeah. That's when I took a flyer off the wall and I applied for this job with the BBC and it was a pilot of a children's drama series called Biker Grove.

23:34Launched 1 ,000 careers. especially Ant and Tech yeah Ant and Tech as well well I know Ant and Tech from those days I know them less well now that they're mega famous you knew them when they were babies I knew them when they were bairns yeah I used to pick them up in my Ford Sierra and eventually that took you to several Catherine Cookson dramas Cinderpath The Gambling Man I remember watching them in the early 90s and behind the scenes that was where you met Dave in 1992 what were your first impressions of him well I thought what's it there's a bloke there's a make up artist, what's going on here?

24:07He came out of the interview and came at the pub and as he came down at the pub they said, look, you've got the job. So Dave was in the pub in the afternoon celebrating that he'd got the job. I don't know, it was just we got each other. You know, we're very very, very different people. We got each other at that point. That's where it was a lifelong friendship. Well, Si, I want to find out what happened next and obviously the journey that you took together, there's plenty to say about that but first let's go to the music your fifth choice what's what is it i was working incredibly long hours and and i just had my head down because all i could focus on was my family in the in the career but actually what was happening is there was a shift towards just earning money because you never knew when the next contract was coming up and this track jane sent me it in a tape you know she sent me this lovely compilation because i was away from home so much and this track particularly was the point where I realised that actually doing what I did had a cost and I was away from the people that I loved and because of those experiences I may have started to change a little bit and and it was a it was a it was a difficult time.

25:27But you're taking it to the island with you today it obviously still has a place in your heart even I know it takes you back to something that was tough. It does. It's a very special song and Martha Wainwright's vocal on it is remarkable, I think. Your words in my memory Are like music to me The miles from where you are I lay down on the cold ground I pray that something picks me up And sets me down in your warm arms Set fire to the third bar, Snow Patrol featuring Martha Wainwright. So, Psy King, when did you and Dave Myers decide to pitch a show of your own? I was one of the location managers on the Harry Potter films, the first two Potter films.

26:29And I thought, well, what am I doing now? So I wrote this idea down. And then I sent it off to Dave, who was working in Canada with Christopher Lambert. He was his own private make-up artist. So Dave was at, like, the top of his trade. And it was just when emails had started, you know, so he was just hoping that it would get there. and he said well okay I've showed it around for a few people and nobody thinks it's rubbish so Dave and I just started to knock it about knock the idea about because you were already cooking together driving together I used to go up when time and money would allow and the family commitments would allow that I'd ride the bike from Newcastle up to Aberdeenshire where Dave was in Huntley and then we'd ride around the highlands of Scotland and drink and eat and just be silly on motorcycles which is what we loved and that was always a lovely thing at the end of a long shoot.

27:26You'd been working hard 18-hour days for three months at a time. We shot this pilot on Row Island in Borough and Furnace where Dave lived at the time. And it took us about three years to get it off the ground. Got the call saying, lads, you've been commissioned and we're off. And that's that? That was that. And were you already called the Hairy Bikers at that point? No, the Hairy Bikers came from an email exchange from somebody. And we still, to this day, don't know where it came from. So tell me about that first series then, BBC One 2006. You went to Ireland, Portugal, Transylvania and crossed the Namibian Desert.

28:03Yes, yes. What do you remember about it? There's one memory that would, I'm lying there with my best mate, I can see it's a red, red, it's called Mesem Crater. And it's red earth. And I just sniffed rhinoceros poo in the wild. Well, they eat myrrh. So it's the nicest smelling poop you've ever smelled. And you could see, you know, long-eared foxes. And the dust came. And the Brandtburg Mountain is set in red as the sunset falls behind it. And the silhouette comes. And then it's just like this duvet of darkness that's pulled over your head like you were in bed. and the whole of the Milky Way lights up.

28:48You're 175 miles away from any human being, any major conurbation, and it's darkness. And I remember turning to Dave and we just went... That is a lasting, a lasting memory. It's lovely. Si, you told me those amazing statistics that you figured out about how far you and Dave travelled together, literally to the moon and back, in terms of the mileage that you covered. But as you also mentioned, all of that success meant time away from your family. I know that the schedule at the height of the bikers was absolutely crazy. You were away from home, I think, 200 days of the year. And that was just filming days.