My earliest memory is sucking a wine gum on Sidmouth beach and a wasp, attracted by the smell, flying into my mouth and stinging my inside lip. It was just horrendous.

Having parents who both cooked was rare in the 50s and 60s. Mum, a teacher, made homely things like bramble pie and rice pudding. On Saturday nights Dad would get this copper pan out and a jug of cream and brandy and I'd watch him do little steak Dianes. It was such a treat.

My nickname at school was Hoggy, but then I did eat a lot. My maths teacher wrote a play-cum-musical set on a ship and gave me the role of "Seaman Keating, who is fond of overeating".

Mum scrimped to buy me a lovely cream and red Kenwood Chef. I've still got it in my spare room, along with so many Magimixes – they're the story of my life.

I drank Sarson's vinegar from the bottle from a young age.

I left school at 16 and lived in at Le Normandie as a full-time apprentice chef. Proprietor Yves Champeau taxed my emotions, shall we say, and I often cried. Sometimes he said: "Si-mon, go 'ome."

Probably the only time I was really ambitious was when I was 20. I opened a restaurant called the Shed in Dinas, Pembrokeshire. God, it was hard. I had one November when there were no customers at all.

I came to London because I wanted glamour and I was gay and I wanted to run away and I found glamour as an Egon Ronay inspector. Egon was very kind to me. If I didn't have a driving licence, I didn't have a job, and twice Egon hired a barrister to get me off speeding charges.

My worst moment at Bibendum [having what he has called "a mini-breakdown"] was just one of those nights. I stopped being a chef because I'd always just wanted to cook. And now I cook every day at home and write about it. It's me.

TV is bloody hard work. I couldn't look into the black hole until the cameraman taught me. There were sticky notes on the camera saying "Look at the fucking lens."

I'm very good on holiday on my own. You see so much more. Once in Paris I went to Brasserie Lipp four lunches runnings, sitting at the same table, facing the bar and kitchen, obsessed by their snails and just enjoying watching the staff.

You cook to please yourself and hope others like it. I don't understand cooks who just want to cook to please Michelin – I just don't get that.

Simon Hopkinson Cooks will be on More4 from early June