Humble Pie. Gordon Ramsay

I hurled it at the wall. Fuck this, I thought. I walked out and I went to the train station opposite, where I tore off my whites and threw them in the nearest bin. I went back to the flat in Clapham.

      ‘What are you doing here?’ asked Jason. ‘It’s only six o’clock.’

      ‘Get changed, mate – we’re going out to party. Marco’s asked me to kick you out and I can’t do that. He’s told me I’m going in a week’s time. Why should I wait a week?’

      Fifteen minutes later, we’re just getting changed when suddenly Steve Terry and another chef, Tim Hughes, and all the French waiters come in. ‘Marco’s closed the restaurant because you walked out,’ says Steve. I couldn’t believe it. The restaurant manager had to ring all the customers to make excuses for Marco closing the restaurant.

      It was a Saturday night. We NEVER had a Saturday night off. So we went to the Hammersmith Palais and we got absolutely mullered. The next night, we all piled off to a pub called the Sussex. All the chefs in London used to congregate at the Sussex on a Sunday. It was about nine o’clock. I was a bit tipsy when all of a sudden the music stopped and someone shouted: ‘Is there a Gordon Ramsay in here?’ There was a phone call for me behind the bar. When I took it, a voice said: ‘Gordon. Marco.’ I mouthed his name to all my mates and they all started shouting abuse.

      ‘It’s clear that you’re with your mates,’ he said. ‘But I think we should talk.’

      I told him that I had booked a holiday: I was off to Tenerife the next day.

      ‘What are you going to that shit hole for?’

      ‘Marco, after what you did to Jason and what you did to me, to be honest I can’t take it any more. You’ve pushed me to my limit. I’ve got to go.’

      But he was insistent; he needed to speak to me, and I gave in. Why? The truth is that, in spite of everything, he was a strong influence on me. I’d confided in him. The abuse I’d had from Dad had no point. But with Marco, the more he screwed you, the more he turned you over, the more you felt yourself becoming better. It sounds crazy, but I was becoming grateful for the bollockings. My saving grace was that I could take it physically, even when it was like SAS training camp.

      We arranged that I would meet him at Harvey’s at midnight.