James Martin

There are a number of professions whose practitioners have become showbiz personalities and celebrities as TV fashion has cycled through its various flavours-of-the-year. For a while it was gardeners, then interior decorators and antique experts, but television chefs have outlasted all of them. From the early days of Philip Harben and Fanny Craddock through Graham Kerr, Delia Smith and Ainsley Harriot.

James Martin is one of the more prolific celebrity chefs where media appearances are concerned. One might almost be tempted to crack dreadful jokes about him having made more television appearances than many people have had hot dinners. We first saw James on our screens in 1996. Since then he has rarely strayed from in front of the camera. He has been a regular on Ready Steady Cook, a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing and is currently the presenter of Saturday Kitchen. He has also produced a number of cookery books.

His career in cooking began when James was very young. His father was the catering manager at a stately home, so James became familiar with ingredients and methods as he grew up.

Although James originally had ambitions to become a vet, he says: “My dad pointed out that I liked my animals best on a plate, so I became a chef instead!”

James’s real training began when he was 16. He enrolled at Scarborough Technical College where he became an outstanding student. His abilities came to the attention of Antony Worrall Thompson, who took James to London where he started work in the kitchens of 190 Queensgate.

Apart from cooking, one of James’s interests is cars, and when Regtransfers.co.uk visited him at his home near Winchester, James showed us part of his esoteric collection of vehicles. In addition to his Audi RS4, James’s garage contains a couple of very nice motorcycles, a vintage Chevrolet Corvette complete with white-walls, a Lotus 340R and a brace of retired Formula 1 racing cars. He owns others, but we really didn’t want to take up too much of his time browsing cars when the real reason for the visit was to deliver his new “chef” number registration, 6 HEF, and to interview him and get some photographs.

“I’ve always loved cars. I work to buy cars. Other people might buy property or something but when I finish at the end of the year I like to buy myself a new car,” he told us. “The number plate looks really good! I already have one “chef” plate, C8 HEF, but this one is much better. It will look great on the car... Although I’ve not completely decided which one to put it on yet!”