‘I pinch myself every day. I can’t believe it is happening,’ said Jamie about his sustained success. ‘I have had a fantastic response from everyone which is really beautiful but there is a down side. Going to the shops to collect some vegetables used to take me about a quarter-of-an-hour. Now it is an hour or more because loads of people want to speak to me. I don’t really mind, but I am really lucky. People seem to be quite positive about me. It would be completely different being a celebrity like Jeremy Beadle who people love to hate.’
Jamie’s remarkable popularity seems to go right across the board, to all ages and both sexes. ‘People of my own age relate to me and that is good because a lot of younger people are really getting into cooking. It is not just about me, though. I think people in the 35 to 55 age group recognise that my recipes work. If they didn’t work, they wouldn’t watch the show. The most interesting are people in their seventies and eighties. They love it because they look at me like a grandson. They even tell me I remind them of their own grandsons and sometimes show me pictures. And they usually look nothing like me. What always surprises me is that sometimes the old ladies pinch my bum.’
And the age group Jamie is most interested in appealing to are the children. ‘I understand their interest because I was interested when I was a very young child. I am really pleased kids are interested as well. I think that if you can encourage people to cook at an early age, then you set them up with a talent that will be useful all of their life. I like the idea of helping young people. I can imagine them in a few years’ time going on to their universities and being able to impress all their mates and do it on a small budget. What could be better than getting a pool of money, buying the ingredients, cooking for 25 people, and then spending the change on beer?’
One of the most endearing aspects of Jamie Oliver is that fame does not seem to have separated him from his old friends. He refuses to allow his fame and wealth to come between him and childhood chums who are less well known. One of the boys Jamie grew up with in Clavering was Jimmy Doherty who is now a biologist. Jamie says, ‘I have known Jimmy since I was two and we have always been close. When we were kids, he was as keen on insects as I was on cooking. The funny thing about Jimmy and me is that we are really alike, but really different. At school we were both pranksters from the word go. The teachers liked us but we never did any decent work. We both had terrible handwriting and could hardly spell. But as soon as we went our different ways, I got through catering college with flying colours and Jim turned out to be really clever.’
As children, they used to compete to see who could assemble the more impressive collection of tropical fish and it was just as Jamie seemed to be inching ahead that his thermostat broke and he woke up in the morning to the tank full of simmering fish. Jim reckoned that was when Jamie took an interest in cooking.
When Jim went off travelling round the world for a year, Jamie was desperately jealous that he was not going with him but he had just moved to London to get his career going and he didn’t have the cash to finance a year away. But he made sure Jim got a good send-off with a big leaving party at his dad’s pub. Jamie spent all day making the pizzas and his band provided the music. When Jim was a student up in Coventry and Jamie’s wealth arrived with a vengeance, both friends made sure the money did not come between them.
‘Jamie is an absolute diamond,’ said ‘Simon’, a pal who prefers to keep his identity a secret. ‘We were friends at school and then we lost touch for quite a while. I knew he was a cook and I saw him in London once or twice, just for a drink. I had a good job in marketing and I was doing really well at first. I had a smart flat in Docklands and a convertible BMW and I thought life was sweet. But some of the guys at work introduced me to the drugs scene. We used to go out all weekend and get totally blasted. We didn’t feel like we were doing any harm but gradually we began supplying drugs. At first, it was just a few tablets of E and some blow. There are loads of straight guys who like to freak out and don’t exactly move in the sort of circles where you can get drugs. I was just bridging the gap, or so I thought. But it was so lucrative I got really greedy.
‘Pretty soon I was making more money from drug-dealing than I was out of my job. But a group of us made a major cock-up at work due to being completely spaced out and it cost the company quite a lot of money. My so-called friends were quick to pass all the blame my way and I was out of a job when my bosses found out what I had been up to. I was lucky not to go to prison. And I was homeless because I got evicted from my flat for not paying the rent.
‘My family had all broken up after I left home. My dad gave my mum a pretty hard time and they split up and they both had new lives without much space in them for an out-of-work son with a drug habit and no prospects.
‘It was just when Jamie was making it really big, so he was the last person I expected to hear from. But an old girlfriend had told him what a mess I’d made of my life. He was brilliant. He didn’t lecture me but he did bollock me and tell me in no uncertain terms what a monumental mess I was making of my life. He didn’t give me money directly but he got me a job and helped me to find somewhere to live. He promised to help me so long as I worked hard at it and stayed off drugs. He made damn sure I kept my side of the bargain and he helped me out with a deposit when I wanted a flat. It’s all behind me now. I’ve got a career and a new girlfriend and a new life but I could have gone right down. Jamie never forgets his friends and his background. He might be a great chef on TV but he is even better as a mate.’
‘Jamie has always been the same,’ says Peter Begg, a fellow chef from The River Café days. ‘You should see him in the kitchen at work. It is fantastic what he is doing. I have long believed what he believes that you don’t really need recipes, just an understanding of what you are supposed to be doing when you are cooking. Jamie? Changed? It would take an awful lot more than a TV series to change Jamie. He is an ordinary bloke – well, actually, he’s not. He is pretty amazing and he is a very good cook. There are not many Jamies around.’
‘Jamie has not changed,’ says musician Daniel Jones, a friend from catering college and who worked in The Cricketers. ‘Where we’re from, it’s weird – we all go off and do different things, but no one has ever really changed.’
Contrary to what some carping columnists have said recently, Jamie Oliver does not believe he has changed the world. But he is proud of what he has achieved in such a short time. ‘In the last couple of years, we’ve tried to show that it’s quite cool to cook,’ says Jamie. ‘You eat three times a day so you might as well eat well. Definitely, women do appreciate it. But anyone appreciates it, male or female. If you come home to a nice bit of tucker, it’s kinda quite cool and romantic. It’s quite a good pulling factor. I’ve been with the same bird for nine years but girls do seem to go for it. I’ve made so many converts but I still have a percentage of people who want to chase me down the road and beat pulp out of me. It’s a life of two sides.’
But it makes for a busy life. ‘I’ve been cutting my own hair for three months now because I haven’t had time to go to the bloomin’ hairdresser.’
Jamie’s openness is natural, not an act, and sometimes he knows he goes too far. Jools was embarrassed when Jamie answered a cheeky journalist’s question, ‘When did you last feel utterly insignificant?’ with the headline-hitting response, ‘Last night when I was in bed with my missus and I lasted three seconds.’
Jamie loves clothes and that studied scruffiness takes a great deal of achieving. ‘My latest pride and joy is a top Duffer jacket. The more I wear it and the more I get it dirty and scratched, the better it’s going to look.’
Jamie admits his taste in clothing is quite stuck in the ’70s. ‘I’ve got about five sets of Gazelles and Campus and I like the old denim. I often shop in second-hand stores, so it’s not so much about an item of clothing as a certain period.’
Jamie’s love for Jools is total and all-consuming. He says that he thinks the three essential ingredients of love are trust, respect … and lust. If he were allowed to write just one last letter to someone, it would be to Jools and it would say simply: ‘I love you, make sure you thank everyone for everything.’ He will always be grateful to her for the massive support she has given him. She hates flying but she has put her fears to one side to travel with him on his endless globe-trotting trips. And Jamie’s remedy for those interminable flights is another example of his cheeky take on life. He reckons the worst aspect of air travel is that airlines don’t help passengers join the mile-high club. ‘They’d only need a little room, a couple of handles to brace yourself. A little bit of a laugh for about three minutes … if you do it twice.’
As the success grows and grows, Jamie is careful to make sure he always takes enough time off from his increasingly busy schedule to be with Jools. He says, ‘We have little mini-holidays, just days off relaxing, really, but we rarely leave London. I’ve got a 50cc Velocifero, a very sexy retro-style Italian scooter, like a hairdryer on wheels, which is great for whacking down the park and parking cheekily up on the pavement. But the best breaks are on hot days in my garden at home. I get a stack of cold French beers in the freezer, Juliette sits in the sun and I tinker about planting things. I grow tomatoes, zucchini, French beans and loads of herbs – thyme, bay, rosemary, sage, oregano, marjoram – the lot. It’s not that I am particularly green-fingered, I am just mad about food. If I ever have any influence, the first thing I will do is to whinge about herbs in the supermarkets. They really take the mick with the prices.
‘The thing is, there is always a million things to do and I like to get them done. I can never just lie in the sun. But when I get away, my ideal holiday will be anywhere hot, for more than two days with nothing to do but read, drink beer and spend quality time with Juliette, a proper chill-out time. Then I will happily sit there all day and do nothing.’
After spending all their adult lives together, Jamie and Jools are still blissfully happy. As Jamie puts it, ‘The Olivers are like swans. Once we find a mate, it’s for life. Jools is a good girl. When we first met she was too nice, almost to the point of being a drip. But these past two years she has just got so strong. If anybody criticises me, it upsets her, because I am part of her now.’
Jamie’s relationship with Jools is based on total trust. Lots of female admirers have found out first hand that he is not interested in other women. And one or two well-known ladies have made it clear they would like more than just another helping. But Jamie has his own rules. He believes that even a full-on kiss means you are being unfaithful. ‘As soon as you kiss them, then you’ve gone past the line. But men are weak. Anything beyond a cuddle is too far.’
Old friend Gennaro says, ‘Jools is a lovely girl. Of course, she is going to worry a lot, he is a superstar. But with Jamie there is no trouble.’
Jamie says, ‘I know how her mind works and she knows how mine works. I do short-change her in time a lot now, but she trusts me. She knows I am not going off gallivanting, screwing other girls. I have never been unfaithful and I can look her in the eye and say that. It is just a really nice feeling.’
And in any case, Jamie admits there is one thing at which he is absolutely hopeless – lying. ‘I’m a shit liar. I flinch, I go red, my eyes go funny.’ Jamie has no experience of ditching girlfriends and he hopes that he never has to learn. But when asked, he advised not too wisely, ‘Give them a kiss, tell them that you love them.’
Now well into his twenties Jamie is convinced that he is in the process of turning into his father. He said, ‘I filmed a programme with him, and when it got down to editing it, all our body movements were exactly the same. I think I have the same querying look.’