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3rd October 2023
04:26pm BST
"I'm not trying to say 'shoulda woulda coulda' but if I came back on Earth and did it again, I would go to (set up the) pub, and I would have a normal life and I would be aware that anonymity is our greatest gift that we will never give any currency to.
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"And to have just enough and to trot on, and to be the best you can at your thing, and be part of a community, and to have a mutuality… That is very very very precious," Jamie said.
His current life is worlds away from the way he was raised in a pub in north Essex owned by his parents - a time he remembers fondly. "I was never bored, I was never lonely. I was dyslexic, I was hyperactive... but in a pub I bounced around,' he recalled. Jamie worked in that pub washing the dishes and cleaning toilets to earn his keep. [caption id="attachment_589523" align="aligncenter" width="640"]
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Though he soon left that all behind when he burst onto the scene as The Naked Chef in 1999 and his career began to take off rapidly.
The dad of five has confessed that being in the public eye hasn't always been easy for the kids. He said they were "getting grief because of me," arguing that "celebrity and children is not a good combination."
