George and Larry Lamb

0:03Hello and welcome to Table Manners. I'm Jessie Ware and I'm here with my mum in Clapham. Hi, darling. Hi, Mum. I saw you about 12 hours ago. Yeah. We had been a... But the mood wasn't as good as it is today. OK. Because you were backseat driving. Darling, I needed to be. No. Because Chelsea were playing at home. We got stuck in the worst traffic, going to probably a place that we might never go to again. Yeah. The most horrendous soft play I've ever been to in my life. I mean, the kids had a great time. Yeah, they did. But I... There were hundreds of people there. It was a lot. There were four birthday parties going on with at least 20 children in each booth.

0:41They had them in booths like this and it was run by teenagers. So today, we've got a duo, a family duo. Yeah, like us. Yeah, who work together, who are stars within their own right, just like us, Mum. We've got George and Larry Lamb coming on. Very excited. George Lamb, you remember him from Big Brother, being kind of a bit loud-mouthed and gorgeous, with salt and pepper hair. Very handsome. Yeah. Six Music, music, kind of, he was pop culture. And now he's gone into farming and education. And then his dad, Larry Silver Fox. Gavin and Stacey. Actor that's been on Broadway, The West End. And he was on Strictly, this Christmas special.

1:29Oh, was he? I didn't watch it. so um yeah we've got larry and george coming on they have a company and initiative together called wild farmed which i'll let them explain better but it's a regenerative farming business so yeah they are very very busy and apparently they're going to bring some bread today oh wow i'll get the butter out what what are you cooking today mom oh it's tricky isn't it lunchtime so i've done it's cold she says it's not cold no but it's cold i've done harissa lamb meatballs sweet potato mash I've done my chicory and onion salad and you've done a green herb salad and I have the old panettone left over like a hole in the head don't eat it so it's panettone bed and butter pudding which I think everyone loves with a drop of cream gorgeous, can't wait George and Larry Lamb coming up on Table Mothers

2:31George and Larry Lamb are in our kitchen. George has just come in with so much bread. Yeah. There's a lot of it. We're eating focaccia. Would you like a bit of focaccia, Larry? I like, yes. Well, yours. It's your focaccia. Well, your flour. Can I just say something? These are two of the best looking men we've ever had in my kitchen. And I just thought I'd put it out there. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us. We were just asking whether you two fight, because we fight quite a lot. A lot. But women do fight a lot. Really? Oh. Great opening statement, Dad. Let's go.

3:09Carry on, let's go. Look. Wow. It's quite interesting, the reason he's saying this. You get over it. No, I think that's what men do. They get over it and we fester. Yeah, but in the end you get over it. Anyway, give some context. I need to know why you don't fight now. No, no, but I think it's even better. I want to give you the context of why. So dad has lived a very unconventional life. What do you mean? He's currently living with his ex-partner and her sister. And his youngest sister. And my youngest sister. Jesus. And so he's basically in a place where there's loads of women. But not your mother.

3:48Not my mum. Okay. He's shaking his head. And they're all having, there's like a bit of a war going on at the moment in the house, basically, which is why he's like which is why he's like women got it a lot that's not a question I'm trying to work out where everyone fits in how many life partners have you had? yeah, life partners, seven wow, honestly like a cat, you just need two more no, no, no I don't need two more, no, I don't need nine knives anyway, carry on No, I don't. Seven life partners. Seven is enough and actually too many. But you've gone backwards now with ones you've been out with before.

4:34No, the thing is, fortunately, you know, there's two of them, three of them I've retained a really nice relationship with. It's best if you do, because the problem is, whether you like it or not, once you have children with someone else, you're connected for life. I say that. Until the moment you die, you are connected. So the best thing to do is get yourself a great big white flag, put it up and live in a state of truce. Because otherwise you'd drag your kids into war for the rest of their lives. So you're so different from your persona on Gavin and Spacey. Really? Yeah. He's pretty mild. He's mild, isn't he?

5:13Yeah, but he's mild. But you wouldn't imagine on Gavin that he'd have lots of different partners. Oh, no. Oh, no. No, not him, dear. Absolutely not. Not him. No, he's standard Marks and Spencers, man. You know what I mean? Marks and Spencers is great, by the way. We love Marks and Spencers. In terms of his, yeah, it's great. They're opening a load of new stores. Yeah, you know that. I love it. Yeah, it's your flower in Marks and Spencers. We love it. They're our main partner. No, I understand what you're saying. Is Mick your character? Was he called Mick? That's him. He would have worn a nice cashmere jumper from M &S.

5:50I don't know whether he'd have got into cashmere yet. Or for Christmas, maybe. A little merino wool. A merino wool. So you're here. This is what we find. And obviously we know of you both from different worlds of entertainment. But now you're in farming and you're working together. And I think you're going to explain it better than I did on the intro. So please, can you tell us about Wild Farmed? Yeah. For context, I used to be a game show host. and I'd fallen into television. How? Well, how did you start? I was managing bands, actually. I was managing DJs, yeah, and did that. And that was really good fun.

6:29Who were you managing? I managed these guys called the Audio Bullies. Oh, yeah. And so we did that for a few years. And then... Did you manage Lily Allen for a bit? I managed Lily Allen briefly, just before she was... Right up until she was successful, actually. And then I had a few years... Then I was just trying to figure out what I was going to do with myself. And I got a job. but I was renting a desk from a mate who had a TV company and he got the tender to do E4 music, which is like MTV type stuff. And they needed lots of VJs and I knew about music and I always had plenty to say for myself.

7:01So they said, do you want to come and give it a whirl? And I tried it and I liked it. And so for a couple of years, I was doing a bit of TV presenting whilst I was figuring out what I was going to do. I knew I didn't want to be a band manager because it's a thankless task. Actually, people say it's a pleasure managing me. Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure. Yeah, I did that for a bit and then I got a bit of a break. I kind of followed in the vacuum of Russell Brand and I ended up getting a really good manager who was the main guy at that moment in Britain. And within kind of two years, I'd gone from doing nothing to basically being quite successful.

7:31Did you enjoy it? And I enjoyed the kind of fame and the bright lights and all the money and all the rest of it. But it definitely wasn't making my heart sing. I'd set this kind of phantom goal as primetime television. And when I get to it, I'll be happy. Finally got onto primetime. Turns out it's no different. you're showing a bit more money you work at a different time of day rang dad uh was lying in bed one morning sitting in my nice house with my nice car with all my nice stuff rang dad said dad i know this feels this sounds really bad but like i feel totally empty and i've got everything and everybody's telling me how much i'm smashing it and like i just it's not making my heart sing and he said well you know game show host not a very serious guy in the big scheme of things is and so I was like wicked you could have told me that you know five years ago um but anyway where were you at in your career at this point you were just like you were always working you doing yeah you know I was just very lucky and just basically worked you did yeah but you worked you worked all through the 80s and then in the mid 90s when he hit 50 like naturally when you hit 50 you have to take a step down the ladder basically anyway especially if you're not that far in the first place nobody's like no but like that's how it works and then and at the same time reality tv came in yeah and a lot of actors had a big problem when reality television started coming in because it was much cheaper to produce reality television saturated the market yeah it did and so lots of stuff that would have been drama wasn't drama in the end so i like a lot of actors of my age felt it was like it was getting a bit tough so that was the first time i ever really had any kind of slow down and then it all just picked up again and it all just rolled on that was it so after about eight years yeah that's what i'm saying right no but it's not but it's not like all you know just smooth because it's interesting you've had two kind of acts in your in your life and uh but he was definitely like it was rolling again by the time he was giving me the you're not a very serious guy in the big scheme of things chat anyway i'm glad he did it and i'm glad he gave me that because i i knew anyway you know you know everything basically you know all the answers you know but it's just whether or not you want to listen to them and accept them and face up to them and so I knew I had to make a change kind of decided to do it quite dramatically and renounce all worldly goods and get rid of my house and tell my agent I'm not coming back to do the next series and off I went and just like did you eat pray love yeah pretty much did you yeah yeah what's that well you went and found himself yeah so I went off I had a whole kind of man search for meaning and everything went off twitter I wasn't I was barely on twitter twitter was twitter was just coming out actually uh and at this moment this is like 2011 2012 first big thing that's been was going on with the london riots were happening at that point and i was just like this isn't okay there's two worlds going on and most people have got nothing and i've managed to wangle my bit into the you know the small set of people who've got everything and basically what became apparent is if i went into a room full of wealthy people no one had ever seen me before because they don't watch television and if i went into a room full of poor people everybody knew everything about me how you doing georgie how's the old man how's it going he's on eastenders in gavin and stacy i'm on big brother's little brother every day like everybody knows us and you start to realize that actually game shows is distraction for poor people and i don't want to be complicit in that you know so off i go start trying to figure out who i'm going to be what i'm going to do i'm shanty on you know off in the jungle drinking the medicine doing whatever it wasn't really finding what i was looking for didn't find my guru thought fuck it i'll go to Ibiza so I went to Ibiza walked into a nightclub met this great big guy who's six foot ten who was one half of Groove Armada and and uh and I asked him what he was up to and he said he just sold his publishing rights and he bought 100 hectare farm down in Gascony and he's trying to figure out how you do wheat production properly and so began this kind of 10 year spiral into what is now a regenerative food business and we're in about 300 stores around the country we just partnered up with M &S.

11:28We're trialling with Nando's at the moment. We've got about 60 farmers up and down the UK who farm with us now. And we're probably the biggest collective of regenerative farmers in the country. Maybe Europe. Farmer George. Yeah. And does your heart sing a bit more now? Definitely. Definitely. I'm slightly more involved in the day-to-day business than I'd like to be. Is that because it's still... He wants to be a farmer. So he's got to be a business executive. Why do you live in bloody Dalston then? I'm on my way. I'm on my way where are you going to choose to go I don't know don't tell Jessie because she'll be saying oh can we move there man yeah yeah I've seen that Gloucestershire that looks gorgeous too far so do you get your wellies on and you go to the farms yeah I love it I love it I did about two or three years of doing kind of busman's holidays every holiday I'd get I'd be off to Andy's farm his first farm he's back farming in the UK now but his first farm was in France so I'd just go down to Gascony and just spend the time you do the kind of like the easy job so I do all the electric fences and moving the cattle around.

12:28But, yeah, there's just something I really... What I've realised, actually, I hope I'm not that complicated, like, I need to see the horizon, like, not just metaphorically. Like, I really need to see it, literally. And it just changes my whole state, if I can see it. So you don't miss telly? Not at all. At all. I miss doing radio. You were on Six Music. I think I came in as a backing singer for Jack Pignatte when you were doing your Six Music show. So I used to do it with my best mate, and he's the funniest bloke I know, so we'd just sit and... Who was your best mate? He's called Mark Hughes, a little fella, and we'd just sit and do the same shtick we'd been doing for the previous 20 years on there, you know, and it was really good and people liked it.

13:07But again, same thing, you know, I hadn't really... At that point, I was kind of busy orbiting my own ego most of the time, so... So how did your dad get involved? Just by being his son. Yeah. No, by being his dad. I get that muddled all the time. But yeah, just like being a supportive dad. And, you know, I'm basically a displaced country boy. Really? Yeah. You don't sound like you. No, no, no, I know. I know I don't. That's the secret. But no, given my choice. Where were you born now? Born in North London, Edmonton. But, you know, where I revert to, I revert to country boy in the sticks. You know, I have an old place in Normandy.

13:50And as soon as I've got any time free, I'm gone. That's it. I'm just I'm gone so let's talk about growing up together were lots of holidays in Normandy did you go there did you have the place holidays in Normandy no other holidays why did it drive you potty it was a house we were all sort of spending time in because it had become this big this target to do up this property which was a bit of a wreck in fact it was a wreck but a resurrectable wreck in a lovely place and so that became my passion that became the thing I was set on doing and you know my I wasn't always an actor I had a big old life before I was an actor I worked in the oil business and I was working in America and Canada out doing work on pipelines and oil lines out in the middle of nowhere so I kind of became a country boy out in America and then when I came back here, found this old place in Normandy and that was it.

14:50I saw the potential for having like a camp in the country, you know, that would be, you know, that gradually, you know, that would become my place and that's what it did. It just over the course of the first 20 years or so became my spiritual home and still is now, 35 years down the line. What is a childhood memory, a food memory from those trips to Normandy for you, George? We were allowed to go down into the creperie, basically there was a i mean it's a one-horse town where dad was it's like a famous old half horse town it's a famous old cheese town um and we used to go down we used to walk down and go to this crepery and just eat you know like cheese and it's what him and his mates could do so when i took you know i'd go over there with like half a dozen really rowdy teenagers and you know and spend my time just like cooking fixing carrying doing everything for them and the one thing they could do was walk down into the village and go to the creperie down there and that was their kind of one thing yeah there were no discotheques it was a bit i was by the time i was discotheking i was i was i was out of there yeah so where were you you were born in london yeah i was born in and brought up where in on north end road when i was a kid great market there yeah it used to be still not bad you know fruit and veg yeah not but yeah i know but not not like it was then you know I mean, it was a, I can remember living in a flat above it and you'd look out and that place was thronged all week long.

16:15You know, like people between the line of stalls and the buildings that I live in, you looked and you could just see a sea of people down there all the time. It's not like that anymore. You know, the supermarkets have bashed them. That's the trouble. Do you still live around there? No, no, moved north years ago. So creperies. So yeah, so creperies. what else would we do we used to go to I remember loving going to the markets I remember going there used to be this big market Saint-Pierre-Soudivre every Monday and they had they had in this like old style like proper old kind of you know what would that be yeah like a proper market hall so you know a covered market but the roof of the market was 40-50 feet in the air so you were almost outdoors indoors and like traditional you know with all sorts of livestock in there which is something you don't You didn't really, I certainly didn't see when I was growing up.

17:07You can't see it anymore. It's all stopped now. It was a traditional market and then the European regulations all changed. They couldn't, you know, they couldn't sell live animals there at all. So that was it. The character of it changed. But that was, we would go there on a Monday morning and as a bit of, you know, a bit of local life. And, you know, thousands of people would be there. And it was, you know, a really vibrant thing. We'd stop, you know, you would always go and get like, they'd sold sausages, grilled sausages. in baguettes. Has doing regenerative farming, it's really hard to say.

17:39It is, I know. It's a bugger, isn't it? Take off. Just leave that gin alone for half an hour. You'll be fine. Has it made you think about what you're eating? I think you still eat meat. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. You promised that you did. 100%. No, no, no. Has it changed the way that you eat? Definitely. Without question. How? How? Because you, like anything, once you've kind of, you know, looked behind the curtain, it's very difficult to unsee what you've seen and what you understand. And, you know, interestingly, Andy, who's the start... Gruv Armada, guy. And Gruv Armada, who's my business partner.

18:15Oh, OK. There's three of us who set it up, wild farmed. And Andy, who was the kind of lead on it, he was a 20-year vegetarian. And when he started farming, he realised that you can't do... This whole notion of, like, you know, doing, you're a dairy farmer, you're a beef farmer, I'm an arable farmer, and separating it all is a nonsense, basically. And so, you know, if you, animals and plants have developed over millennia in symbiosis, and if you have them together, you've got a whole load of solutions. And if you separate them, you create, you know, infinite problems, basically. That's exactly what Thomasina Myers says.

18:51There you go, yeah. She says you can't not have cows, because cows do things to the land, but you need them to do. because that fertilizes and that's how you embellish the land yeah yeah absolutely yeah so so i'm much more careful about where i get my food from and certainly with me i would only eat if i'm coming somewhere where i trust them and and i don't know they're going to buy good stuff you know it's a madness that we're in a situation where you have to have you have to kind of stipulate having like non-chemical laced food you know so like to even have a standardization or qualification of organics, super peculiar, you know, because everything else is laced with herbicides and fungicides and pesticides and all the rest of it.

19:34It's a nonsense. Can I ask about, well, we've got the Normandy creperie, but who was doing the cooking when you were growing up and living together? My mum, thankfully. Were your parents together? No, no. Once he was about three, we realised we were going to have to live around the corner to each other and have him back and forth between us. And have you got any brothers or sisters? I've got two little sisters from a different mum. So you'd spend some of your time with your dad and some of the time with your mum. Yeah, and it was a lot of time. You know, if I was away, sometimes he'd come with me and then, you know, I'd come back and I'd be around maybe two or three weeks and he would come and stay with me.

20:11And so it was good between his mum and her. And how was the food? What's the, you know, when you go unaccompanied minor on the plane. Oh, yeah, he had to wear the little neck things. The arms, yeah. He flew right across America when he was, it was 87 so you were eight so he flew right across america and they finished up sitting i think it was in salt lake city in the airport for about six or seven hours waiting for a flight on to los angeles and uh so but he was like he was always very very independent i can remember in his early teens and i was spending a lot of time in and out of paris and there were friends mine there that had boys about the same age and i fixed it up for them to meet and i remember saying look you know I'm going to have to take you down we get on the metro and he said dad dad dad you know I can do the metro alright I can do the metro I don't need you to take me anywhere see you later that was it where do you think that came from I think only children are pretty independent going away to school and I got sent away to school oh you went to boarding school when I was six no no no I'm joking when I was 11 did you like it I mean so in the end yes it was the best boarding school you can imagine no even more like more hippie kind of thing schoolst christopher's so it's teachers by their first name no school uniform vegetarian girls and boys yeah just like having a nice time basically it's in letchworth which is just an hour north of london yeah and you loved it yeah the first year you hate it and i rang home every night and sobbing and all the rest of it you know like there was a queue there used to be me i think i went after mark every night and then Rory went after me and you literally would hand this like wet hand hand set you know on the pay phone and you'd be like oh and you just bawling but then all basically you hit puberty and you realised that you're in a holiday camp and and there's girls everywhere and like and you've got all your mates around you and you can you know like you can get a game you can just walk into the sitting room and be like who wants to play football and within five minutes there's 25 guys outside playing football.

22:12How cool is that? What made you go to boarding school? Why did you decide? His mum and I were not for the idea at all, but we wanted to get him somewhere where there was a bit of, I suppose, a bit of character to it. And the only way you could do that was to get into the private thing. I mean, it wasn't massively expensive. It was expensive enough because I wasn't earning a lot of money at the time. But it was the ethos of this place, which was kind of outward bound. It was vegetarian. and they all seemed to be a wonderful place for them to be and we liked the idea of there being girls and boys in the same place as a residential school and that they kind of had a different sort of life there.

22:53Andy was a single boy, which is another thing, you know, because back and forth between a mum and a dad, doting mum, doting dad, you become like the prince. That's it. So in the end, he began to get a little bit unbearable, so he had to ship him off. Did you like the vegetarian food? It was terrible. Was it? It was terrible. I used to sell hamburgers, actually, down at the smoker's corner. I bought him a hatchie, and he had a hamburger stand out the back of the school. That's amazing. Did you get in trouble? No, I never got caught. Yeah, never got caught. But there was like a tiny little pitch and putt golf course that backed onto the smoker's bit, and then my mate's house backed onto that, who was a day pupil.

23:37So I just run like 100 metres across the corner, you know, through the woods, and I could go and stash everything in his... So you've always been quite enterprising. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. So did you go to university? No. So you left school and what did you do as soon as you left school? So I was at college and we were just nuts about dance music. And back then dance music worked out of... It was like a network of record shops up and down the country. And so I was one of the kids who... Are you about the same age? I'm 43. I'm 38. and so you used to just I was one of the kids who used to hang around the record store basically and so I won with that at that point was living out in south west like in near Kingston so I used to hang out at this place slamming vinyl and if you stood there long enough because it was a kind of cottage industry you could meet everybody so all the promoters would come in to sell their tickets they'd give their tickets and pick up their money is that like Rough Trade?

24:33they'd put in a bit more even more kind of niche to be honest with you and then and they'd come in and other guys would come and drop the flyers. The guys who would drive the vans, they'd bring the vinyls round. So if you knew them, you knew where you could get pressings, so you knew how to get access to the pressing plant. So you knew the promoters. The DJs would come in to pick up their records, so you could meet the DJs, you knew the promoters, you could get to the pressing plant. So you could pretty much get a handle on everything that you needed to get a handle on. And one of my mates at school, at college, was like, I'm going to be a DJ.

25:03I was like, sweet, I'll be your manager. Who was that? That's what he's got, audio bullies, yeah, yeah. And of course, it doesn't, it wasn't like... Did you put on club nights? Then we put on club nights. We did all that stuff and, you know, I had little studios and did, you know, and ran around chasing DJs around for three or four years, begging them to play our music. And it was, you know, it was pretty brutal. You know, all of our... I was at that point, I just worked on... Then my step-mum, she worked in films. And so I was like a runner, basically, you know. And then I realised, actually, the security guys were earning way more money than I was and they were doing much less so I was just I just do the you know putting the cones out and all the rest of it for the wagons because I was just like I had this up my eyes on the prize of becoming this manager and then and then gradually all the all our mates had gone off to uni they started coming back and that's when it starts to get a bit you know hot under the collar because everyone's like is it not happening boys you know and you're like no no it's coming it's coming it's coming it's coming well it did it did happen yeah And then I got a job driving, I was in Ibiza.

26:01I got a job driving all the DJs for a club in Ibiza. And so I used to put these CDs, I used to make a CD of all the big hits of the day and then slip our ones in every third or fourth tune, basically. And they'd send, and then so when I was driving along, I'd like turn it up. And then by the end of the summer, a few of the DJs were like, what's that? And I'd give them a copy and one of the tunes blew up and we came back. Look at his dad's face, just smiling proudly. Spelling, dear. Spelling. Of course you're spelling, yeah. when's Gavin and Stacey being another one have we had enough of it what of Gavin and Stacey oh no no no I'm just sick of being asked that question I think the chances of that happening again James is coming back I'm sure they'll make a film of it that'll be the next thing they'll do that's the logical thing to do Yeah, it's true.

26:57You know, because to put the whole thing together, to get everybody together, to write it. You know, you're talking at least like to write it, get it approved, get it signed off, to start casting the people, figuring out where you're going to... That's two years, right? So what are you working on now then? I'm just working... Should I get the food? Should I get the food? I'm just working over... I wrote a novel during the COVID, and um and uh so i finally after a lot of messing around and time like me me wasting time and not getting on with it quickly enough but anyway you know because the next thing you've got to do once you've written a novel is you've got to get somebody who wants to publish it and then you've got to get it all honed down to where it is a publishable commercial piece and so i'm now working with an editor on an edit of the book to get it down to the next level.

27:57What's it about? It's based on my life. It's about a little film company that go off on a project in the Caribbean and they just run into a lot of problems. It all goes wrong. But they manage to get themselves out of it. And is this what happened to you? Sort of. Sort of. Yeah, I mean, years ago, I went on this job in the Caribbean with a great big international miniseries, as they used to call them. And, you know, we were drifting around the world for eight months and we finished up in the Caribbean. And indeed, there was a big political hoo-ha going on at the time and they'd load us on a plane and get us out of there.

28:39So it's sort of loosely based on that, just the fact that something like that can happen and that it's out of your control. So is writing quite a new thing for you then? No, I've always written. I've written lots, you know, written lots of ideas. And I never I'd never got anything published until in 2010. I wrote an autobiography because George said, you know, everybody knows who you are now from Gavin and Stacey in East Tennessee. Better start churning out some of those old stories you bored me to death with for the last 20 years and turn them into a book. So I did. And the book was a success.

29:13So that was the first time I'd written. and then I tried my hand at sort of trying to get a novel written, but I had no idea. So I just spent the next 10 years reading. George, have you read your dad's first draft? No, no. You up for it? Yeah, I will do, definitely. To be honest with you, it was more distracting. So my dad, my mum, when COVID kicked off, my mum was living in the middle of nowhere. And you remember at the beginning when everybody thought it was the Black Death and all the rest of it, and it was really heavy. anyway my i've been out for a run and i came back and i had about five missed calls and uh and it was my mum and she'd had a load of health scares and i was like oh fuck has there something gone wrong so i'm slightly panicked i ring her and uh and i'm like mum what's going on and she's just like oh god it's so bad i was like what's happened did you get you hear from the hospital no no it's worse than that just i'm like my mum what's going what's going there finally she's just like your dad's called me he's asked if he can come and isolate with me now bearing in mind these two who haven't lived in a house together for 35 years or whatever at this point basically right so i said what did you say she's like i've had to say yes haven't i anyway so dad went to dad went how many how many months or years did you last i'd gone to france straight away and then i thought hang on a minute i'm gonna be stuck out here with apps and it was really tight there the way they were controlling it was nothing like it was all easy peasy here you know you had to go out with a piece of paper all signed dated timed and everything else and if they caught you with it It's 135 euros fine on the spot and you better have it with you now.

30:44So they took it very seriously and I thought, I'm going to run back to the UK and go out in the country at Linda's. Where was she living then? In Herefordshire, like rural, rural, middle of nowhere, Black Mountains. They had a great big old caravan right at the back of the property and I thought, I'll go and live there. You can't live in the caravan. I can live in the caravan. Anyway, it was all sorted because across the road, a dear neighbour of hers had to go away to look after her dad and so her house was there and she needed somebody to look after it. So I went and... It's amazing the bits of it that you remember that actually is a story.

31:16So anyway, I'm ringing, I'm ringing. He didn't, he lived in the house with my mum. At the end I did. Eventually he went across the road, right? But she was ringing me every day and she's just like, I need to get this guy out of here basically. And he's ringing me going, this is amazing, it's such a good vibe. And I'm thinking, and I could hear in my mum's voice, it was serious, you know? And I was like, what can I do? to get him out of the house. I was like, Dad, you know what? I think it'd be an amazing opportunity for you now. But this is the time to write your novel. And he was like, yeah, you know what, actually?

31:48I think you're right. Anyway, like, off he went up to... And then he did go up and he went in the caravan every day and he wrote his book, because he's got incredible discipline, Dad. So he went and just got there and gradually things got better. But by the time... And then, although it was still quite fraught, so I went down there about around the time... You know when What's-His-Face went up to Durham or whatever? Yeah. oh cunning yeah yeah yeah so you like it's like should we travel not travel but i was like i need to do barnard castle i need to do a bit of a un you know nato kind of vibe basically so i went down to make sure everything was all right i got there my mum was totally ashen she looked terrible and uh and uh and then and then she was having like problems with her heart so we ended up she ended up we ended up getting an ambulance out and then dad who was like his leg was knackered at the time he hobbled down he hobbled down from the caravan and he was like what's going on i was like mum's had a heart attack and you're leaving that's what's going on basically so then that was the end of that but by that point where are the people getting married again the second time we got divorced again does anybody want to eat anything yes we'd love to eat something um so i've done some lamb meatballs with um sweet potato carissa and jesse's done a I'm aware it's just a green herb salad.

33:05And then this is mum's little one. My sister lives in Los Angeles and there's an amazing restaurant called Saffi's. Middle Eastern restaurant called Saffi's. And it's just roasted onions with chicory and like a citrus dressing with walnuts.

33:21This is delicious. Thank you so much. Pleasure. What a treat. There's loads more meatballs.

33:35Wow, stop it. Do you like pudding? We haven't really talked about food that much, actually. We need to talk about food a little bit. So, starter, Larry, what would be in your dream last supper? Half a dozen really, really good, really good fresh oysters. Do you get good ones? Where do you get yours? No, normally it's good. There's a big, big... Are they fat ones? Because I can't deal with the too biggy ones. It depends. It depends. It's the time of the year. that's what you're talking about oh really? yeah well sometimes they're full of eggs and they're full of sperm so like you know take your choice what do you want but so it's the time of the year you get you know and that's why you know at certain times of year you don't eat them it's that with the bread and butter pudding and it's all just really quite that's it like if you want a mouth full of grill cream go oh wow Larry I love you you're filthy brilliant come on but anyway yeah half a dozen really good really fresh oysters and what do you have just lemon or you're going to have nothing oh open them up and just eat them the way the french do rip them off the rocks bust them open and eat them they don't need anything at all it's all a lot of bullets i definitely would have some shallots with a little bit of vinegar one spoon i've never thought about an oyster having sperm in it and now i don't know if i'm gonna could you think you can ask for the girl ones um okay so um okay that's your starter what's your starter jorge he's much more of a foodie he is are you a foodie yeah because of his mum his mum's an amazing cook really yeah what was the best meal that she used to give you when you were younger or she does now do you know what actually would be only be right i'm gonna go quite old school for my ones because i think if you were uh like if you're having your last meal you want to think about your life and all the people who've been in it and the granny soup yeah exactly basically so my granny no word of a lie every single day of her life she had soup yeah and the first thing she said when you went when you came in her house whatever whatever you know obviously maybe not first thing in the morning but like after midday would you like a wee bit of soup a wee bit soup do you like the wee bit what was this soup any soup all soups but just like that's a that's serious mixed vegetable soup that was just mental soups mixed vegetable soups but it's just more specifically my granny so it doesn't really matter which one it was the tomato one or the the watercress one whatever yeah just i love that yeah and i would have that as well if i couldn't have the oysters yeah yeah yeah okay so that is the starter what is your mum's favorite meal that she cooks for you?

36:18Well, she used to, and your ex-wife. You know, what was your favourite meal that she used to cook? It's just, it's the way she does it, rather than what she's actually cooking. Yeah, right. She's just, whatever she makes, it's just got a finesse about it. Well, how was it in COVID time? Because she obviously was cooking for you, I guess. That's basically what was going on. That's what sent her over. I was a cooker for her as well. I would say, okay, I'm going to get some beef and cook it on the grill outside. And she would say, alright, alright, alright. All right. So your mum is just a great cook, but you can't really pinpoint one meal that she used to make.

36:50Actually, the first thing I like that she makes is salads. Oh, really? Yeah. And she'll just make the salad. It just goes on and on and on, and there'll be like, you know, everything. She was into like, you know, flaking and shaving and making up like pangra tartan, and just doing, you know, so there's just all just layers and layers going through this thing. It takes hours to make the salad. But then when you look at it, you don't think it's much. But then when you eat it, you're like, oh, wow. Delicious. Would you agree with that? She's just the most fabulous cook. Fabulous. And not all that care that she takes.

37:24Open the fridge, see what's in there, pull some of it out, chuck it in a bowl and eat it. He's mainly, he's kind of a fuel guy. Fuel. What's the best dish you cook if you're doing a dinner party? Or do you just know where to eat? No, no, no. I love cooking. I like making vongole. Vongole is probably up there my all-time... You can make it. I've never tried because I'm quite intimidated by it. No, no, you've got to do it. It's not that complicated. Really? I've really mastered pasta in the lockdown. Did you make your own pasta? No, but that is how to get the glisten. With the pasta water, isn't it?

38:00Yeah. And also, and it's about 20, 30 seconds of the bash around at the beginning. So you get a load of the water in there, but then you move the pasta around with it. And I don't know whether it's the gluten releasing or whatever it is, but that's how you create that kind of it binds and it takes the the glisten and the sauce onto the pasta rather than it just being around the pasta anyway that or how we got into business with Dave and Jeremy from Jolene Jolene's a restaurant um that lots of all us in as we all know it's in Stokie would you say it's Stokie it's Stokie yeah and it's fabulous yeah is it near an yeah and they've got Premier and they've got Western yeah so they had this restaurant called Primer, which was really, really cool.

38:43And I was going there a lot and sitting at the bar and the guys, the two guys who ran it, one was cooking, one was in the front. And he was telling me, it was the first time I'd come across natural wines and I was, you know, I was just trying them and all the rest of it. And, and, and he was explaining this whole story. And as the story was unfolding, I realized that if you swapped out the word grape for grain, the story he was telling me there about these natural grapes was very, like pretty much the same story as my mate Andy was doing with this natural grain over in france and we're chatting and i was like wow you've got you've got to come and meet my mate andy like you know it's basically the same thing you guys are doing with natural wine anyway they came over with a kind of loose idea of maybe we do a bakery together and uh and david who's the chef went out into the went out into one of the silos on the farm and got a load of uh spelt and brought the spelt back in and he made this spelt risotto it was unbelievable It was the best spelt, it was the best thing, one of the best things I've ever put in my mouth.

39:40We pretty much, Andy reached across the dinner table and was like, right, we're in business, boys. Like, whatever you want to do, we're doing it. But I reckon you could make any risotto out of any gravy. Yes, you can. Because Jacqueline Rowe made it out of porridge, didn't she? Yeah. That was lovely. Yeah. She's something she is, isn't she? She's amazing. It was delicious, and I make that subsequent. So if people come round, I'll make it, yeah. You do a spelt risotto. What's your toppings? It's just got loads of, it's got a ridiculous amount of parmesan cheese in it, basically. but it does to be honest you can say it's a load of other things quite a bit of wine loads of onions and loads of butter and weirdly it's delicious and we've got this really nice vinegar that I put in just to balance it which vinegar?

40:26I'll send you a picture, I can't remember what it's called it's the secret ingredient it's not a sherry vinegar because that's when I went to Jolene and I had their salt and vinegar potatoes. Yes, there you go, it's that. It's that. It's the best. It's the ones that I make, yeah. Oh, fabulous. Great. What's your party dish? I don't know. Well, he's got two dishes. Which one do you want? All right, both. What's the first one? What's the first one? What did we eat exclusively for 20 years? 20 years. Well, my old mate, Brizio, we finished a long job together and he came to England with me because our only means of communication was French.

41:07He's from Rome and I'm from London. And do you speak good French? Yeah, not bad, not bad, a lot better now than I did then and so he taught me how to make about four or five standard sugoes as he calls them, you know, dressings for pasta because that was always his job. at home. Sugo, yeah, the sauce. And so the one that I started to make that the kids all liked and still like now is just a plain tomato sauce. That's it. Pasta red, it's banging. Pasta red, come on. It's quite similar to the sauce that was on there. So give us your recipe. It's got no onions in it. Has it got onions in it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

41:47Oh, it has, okay. You just take, it depends on how much you're going to make, but you take, say, a decent side onion and you cut it down a crossways until you've got it as small as you can. And then you basically, you dissolve that onion in hot olive oil or mix a bit of lighter oil in with it. And just until it makes a safrata, is it? Or is that what they call it? It's a frito. It's a frito. So when it's like, when it's all see-through and it doesn't, it hasn't at all. So no celery, no carrot. Nothing. Just onion. And then I just put salt and sugar to taste. because if not, it's just tomato. No garlic?

42:25No garlic, no nothing. Salt and sugar. A long time, long, long time. Cook it a long time. Yeah, but it's got onion, remember? Yeah. Because that was made without onion, that one. Really? It was just garlic, yeah. It was banging. It's lovely. And what's your other dish that you made? Well, I suppose, you know, like cooking on a grill, cooking like a spatchcock chicken or a rib of beef. Does it? Do you do a whole rib of beef on the beef? Yeah, a rib of beef is better. The spatchcock's a bit dry. Yeah. It depends. I've got people who think it's the best in the world, so please. All right? Yeah. But the river beach will hit every time.

43:00Yeah, I know. But I've learned how to do... All right? All right. Fine. No, no, no. This is what Jesse does. Jesse will go, it's really lovely, Mum, but... Yeah. There's always... I should have... What should I have done today? Yeah. She could have had a tiny bit more salt, but it was beautiful. Elevise and her boyfriend was round. He sat there in it, that chicken, right? And I've got it so I can get the breast all lovely and moist. And he said he'd never, ever in his entire life eaten anything like it. There you go. Is that what he said? Who's Eloise? That's what he said. My daughter, my eldest daughter.

43:33And the boyfriend. And the boyfriend. He's trying to impress you, Harry. I'm sorry. I'm sure it is delicious, but he's probably going to ask for a hand in marriage very soon and needs to butter you up, mate. So, mains. Your own... And what would I like? Yes. What would I like? Yeah. If you're going on a desert island. Well, it depends on what you can get, but you know you can get anything you want don't be too literal I don't know I love all sorts of things I tell you what I did have once I used to get it a lot in Madrid when I was there in 85 and there was a really wonderful restaurant there and their speciality was a young beef between a calf a veal and on its way to being a you know a semi-grown animal so you get this the meat is just extraordinary and they would cook a chop from that which is probably a pound and a half and they would serve it on a hot terracotta plate and it was just phenomenal if you're into meat that was like that the stage in its development that was the way to eat that so yeah i'd probably go for that okay And George, what would yours be?

44:50Really good vongole, probably. The vongole? Your own vongole? No, no, I don't want to cook my last meal. Where's your favourite place to get vongole? Venice is the best place to get vongole. Do you reckon? Do you think? I don't know. I don't know where it is. You have to take a mortgage out to buy it there, though. No, you know, you've got to know where you go. I need to know. Just go away, go away from where all the tourists are. And that is not difficult. What are we doing for pudding? Big pudding person? something like that very definitely bread pudding bread pudding is a thing my man made and that's it different to bread and butter oh yeah yeah yeah totally different it's more like a cake so yeah maybe that yeah maybe bread pudding okay with custard a really good custard on it a proper custard like a bird's custard no no no proper made you know proper made custard okay fine great love it what are you doing pistachio ice cream love pistachio there's a good one I think they've got one down here Adonno's do you know them no it's really good is it a gelato it's a gelato gelato where have they got it they've got about half a dozen around London and I have it I go everywhere and try the pistachio and nowhere's beating it thus far have you tried olive oil on your pistachio ice cream yeah it's a good vibe Michael McIntyre told us about that really right he made olive oil ice cream oh well olive oil ice cream is delicious but olive oil on his pistachio he said it was a game changer when he was on holiday they do and in brawn they do this amazing rhubarb frangipani tart actually that with creme fraiche oh you know what the best pudding is no boise lise the farmer lady that lives next to me in normandy where in that area farmers ladies there who fancy themselves as cooks, they're judged on their tarte au pomme, their apple tart.

46:45It's just an open tart. And his mum was so impressed when she first tasted it. She got the recipe and she still makes her tarts now. Noelle used to make these pork chops. I don't eat a lot of meat, but she used to make these pork chops with apple that was just bananas. That was going to be, that was a close runner for my main... Vongole or Noelle's pork chops. I imagine Niall's featuring Heavily at the moment but her Tarte de Pomme that would be my last dessert does she put Calvados on it? no she doesn't put Calvados in it it's just the right no she didn't put any of that on it where's the apples from?

47:21their own apples that whole area is all apples Normandy's apples isn't it? that's why there's Calvados before we let you go we just need to ask I want them to stay forever I know, this has been really interesting. I really have any stables. Just keep making that, you'll have no problem. But do you think you've got good table manners? Not particularly. Yeah, I'm sort of... If George is around or his mum's around, I do try and keep my feet out of the trough. And, yeah, so... What can't you stand in somebody else when they're at the dinner table that they do wrong? I can't stand people going... I might have done that because I've got a cold no you didn't you didn't don't worry I'd have pulled you up on it alright but and mum likes to finish the chat with a final request do you like karaoke do I like karaoke sounds a bit trite after all we've talked about I know but you've got to do it mum do you ever if you had to sing karaoke what would be your song Larry you know what it probably sounds a little bit weird I'm not really much of a performer bloody hell Jesus Christ You are...

48:32That's like you telling me... He's not really. It's like you telling me I'm an introvert, really. Yeah, but he's not, actually. He's not. I actually made you write that. He was on Strictly. Yeah, but he's not a real showman. All right, it doesn't matter. You're at the end of a wrap party. But if he would do anything, he would do Albert and the Lion, which is a Lancastrian poem. Oh, I love that. You don't even know where it is, are you? Jessie, it was Albert and the Lion. There's a famous seaside town called Blackpool that's noted for fresh air and fun. Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom went there with young Albert, their son.

49:13A grand little lad with young Albert, all dressed in his best, quite a swell, with a stick, with an horse's head handle, the finest that Woolworths could sell. Now they didn't think much to the sea there. The waves were all middling and small and there were no wrecks, nobody drowned in. In fact, nothing to laugh at at all. So seeking for further amusement, they paid and went into the zoo, where they had lions and tigers and camels, and old ale and cheese sandwiches too. There was one great big lion there called Wallace. His nose were all covered with scars, and he lay in a somnolent posture with a side of his head on the bars.

49:54But this didn't seem right to young Albert. he'd heard lions was ferocious and wild and to see Wallace's lion so peaceful it just didn't seem right to the child. So straightway the brave little fella without showing a morsel of fear took his stick with the horse's head handle and shoved it in Wallace's ear. Well you could see that the lion didn't like it but given a kind of a roll he pulled Albert inside the cage with him and he swallowed the little lad whole. Now Pa, who'd seen the occurrence, just didn't know what to do next, said Mother. Yon lion said, Albert. Her mother said, Eee, I am vexed.

50:33So Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom, quite right when all's said and done, they went to the animal keeper to tell him the lion had eaten their son. Well, the keeper was quite nice about it. He said, Oh, what a nasty mishap. Are you sure that it's your boy he's eaten? Pa said, Am I sure? Here's his cap. Well, the manager had to be called for. He came and he said, what's to do? Pa said, young lion's eating Albert, and him and his son do best too. Said, mother, right, it's right, young fella. I think it's a shame and a sin for a lion to go and eat Albert. And after we've paid to come in. Well, the manager wanted no trouble.

51:06He took out his purse straight away. He said, how much to settle the matter? Pa said, how much you usually pay? At that, mother got quite excited. Was right when all's dead and done. She said, somebody's got to be summonsed. so that were deciding upon so they went straight round to police station in front of the magistrate chap and they told him of the lion eating Albert and to prove it they showed him his cap well the magistrate gave his opinion he said I see there's really no one to blame the Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom can still add further sons to their name and that mother got proper blazing oh thank you sir kindly said she what spend all my life raising children to feed ruddy lions, not me.

51:52Now, you've heard how young Albert Ramsbottom in the zoo up at Blackpool one year with a stick with the horse's head and he'll give a lion a poke in the ear and the name of the lion was Wallace so the poke in the ear made him wild and before you could say Bob's your uncle he'd upped and he'd swallowed the child. Well, he was sorry the moment he'd done it for with children he'd always been chums and besides he'd no teeth in his nozzle and he couldn't chew Albert on gums. He could feel the lad kicking inside him as he lay on his bed of dried ferns, and it might have been little lad's birthday, he wished him such happy returns.

52:23But Albert kept kicking and fighting, till Wallace arose feeling bad, and he thought it was time that he started to stage a comeback for the lad. So, putting his head down in a corner, on his front paws he started to walk, and he coughed, and he sneezed, and he garbled, till Albert shot out like a cork. when old Wallace felt better directly and his figure once more became lean and the only difference with young Albert was his face and his hands was quite clean. Meanwhile, Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom had gone home for their tea feeling blue. Mother said, I feel right down in the mouth like. The father said, I bet Albert does too.

53:01Said, Mother, it just goes to show you the future's never revealed. If I'd thought we were going to lose him, I'd not had his boots sold and healed. Well, let's look on the bright side, said father. What cannot be helped must be endured. Every cloud has a silvery lining. And we did have young Albert insured. Well, a knock at the door came that moment, as father, these kind words did speak, was the young man from the Prudential. He'd call for their per tuppence, per person, per week. Well, when pa saw who'd been knocking, he laughed, and he kept laughing so that the young man said, what's it to laugh at?

53:38And Pa said, aye, you're laughing all when you know Excuse him for laughing, said mother But really, things happen so strange Our Albert's been ate by a lion You've got to pay us for a change Said the young man from the Prudential Come, come, let's understand this You don't mean to say that you've lost him And Ma said, oh no, no We know where he is Well, when the young man had heard all the details A purse from his pocket he drew And he paid them with interest and bonus The sum of£9,£4 and£2 and Pa had scarce got his hands on the money when a face of the window they see and Mother said, here look, it's Albert and Father said, aye, it would be the young lad came in all excited and started his story to give and Father said, I'll never trust lions again as long as I live well the young man from the Prudential to pick up the money began and Father said, here just a moment don't be in such a hurry, young man and giving young Albert a shilling he said, here, pop off back to the zoo there's the sit with the horse's head handle go and see what the tigers can do

54:44brilliant love it thank you have you recorded that for you should you have now thank you hey not at all pleasure it's lovely good northern accent well it's alright it's a very good we're impressed for a southerner it's alright especially because we've been Jessie's favourite place used to be Blackpool did it yeah yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that was great. I want my kids to listen to that. You know, I'll tell you something. I did that, who do you think, or they did, who do you think you are? Yeah. And they went down the line from my adopted mother and they traced us all down to a family of menagerie owners and my great-great-uncles were lion tamers.

55:23Oh, my God. And do you know who their number one lion was in their act? Wallace. Wallace, shut up. That's amazing. I know. Tell me about it. That poem has been a part of my life. that was what I did as an audition to become a professional actor do you remember it used to be on Stanley Holloway yeah Stanley Holloway it was his number yeah and there used to be a children's favourites do you remember children's favourites you had Pink Toothbrush I'm a Blue Toothbrush Nelly the Elephant and they often had Albert and the Lion Albert and the Lion have you heard that I used to make him do it all the time it's amazing it's fabulous thank you so much for being on here it's been inspiring educational yeah we've loved it such a pleasure and you had second helpings yeah we love people with good appetites exactly you've got to have people with a good appetite so if people want to try your bread the flour your flour in well no your bread the flour whatever if they want to support a farming system which is sorting out the environment and makes much healthier food for them then they should go on our website which is wildfarm.co.uk and they'll be able to find a stockist near them and they're in 500 Marks & Spencer stores up and down the country so there's definitely one of them that won't be too far from you and there's a couple of places you can get it online if you want to get the flower yourself and start working with it and various restaurants around London everywhere all the stockists are online so yeah thank you so much Larry and George Lamb for coming over and teaching us a thing or two about lions and flour and farming.

57:07Thank you very much ladies. That was wicked fun. Thank you. That was great.

57:24What a fascinating episode. I absolutely loved that conversation. It was such good fun. And so interesting and so motivating. Yeah, I kind of feel like we've got our very own Tony Robbins in a George Lamb. He is also so charismatic. He's lovely. And they were just such... Albert and the Lion. I loved it. I never heard of it. I grew up with that. I loved it. It was a really wonderful couple of hours. We could have kept on chatting. I mean, we barely kind of talked... I feel like we barely talked about food because there was so much more to talk about. But it was all about food, darling. I know, but I think you take George Lamb, if you knew of him in the noughties, was this, you know, star on the telly, but obviously so unfulfilled and has found this amazing calling and is doing so much important work.

58:15And we think he should start his own bloody political party or whatever. Absolutely. He was one of the cats here again. Yeah, the cat lives with you, Mum. Darling, but he doesn't need attention all the time. I want stroking all the time, Prince. Poor Prince. Thank you so much to George Lamb and Larry Lamb for coming over, eating seconds of both courses. Enjoyed the food. They loved it. It worked all right, didn't it? Absolutely. Thank you for cooking. Is it me up for cooking next? Am I doing it next? I don't know. I've lost track. If you want to learn about Grow or Wild Farmed, we've got the links in the notes.

58:54Go and check it out. It was such an interesting lunch. we'll see you next week be well