To the second question I have no answer. I ask it of myself on a daily basis.
As for the first question well.....
We all have significant days in our lives. Or at least I imagine we do. The day we first meet our partner; the day our first-born arrives; the day we choose our University/first job/first house, etc etc.
But occasionally we have a day or incident that totally alters the course our lives were perhaps destined to take.
The day that would change my life was Saturday 7th February 1987. To be precise It was 2 o'clock in the afternoon (French time) on Saturday 7th February 1987. It was raining, it was windy, and it was very, very cold.
I had just turned 28 years old. The five years since graduation had been spent largely in the employ of a small Irish construction firm. By dint of joining the firm almost at it's inception and the company's early expansion I had risen to the lofty heights of Assistant Managing Director. We laid sewers and built roads and bridges and we entertained potential and existing clients. I was fine with the sewer laying and the road and bridge building. Entertaining of clients was a job for which I was rather less well equipped. But boy did I have a teacher. We'll call my boss Gerry McHugh since that was (and still is) his name.
I had a sheltered upbringing in many senses. My father was a local authority engineer. We lived on a small farm which I suppose could more accurately be described a smallholding, managed largely by my mother (Mrs A within earshot, less printable terms of endearment when not) - a farmer's daughter. Our house was the original farmhouse but most of the land had been sold off to pay death duties. We had about a dozen acres and existed on the produce we grew and reared.
Because the house was enclosed by a moat we had a seemingly endless supply of waterfowl. We kept a few of sheep, a couple of Dexter cows, chickens, turkeys at Christmas, and we had a couple of acres given over to fruit and vegetables. My mother was - and indeed still is - a wonderful cook. But we never ate out. By the time I left home at 17 my only experience of the hospitality industry had been as an employee of the Beacon Pub in Loughborough. A career sadly cut short following my expulsion from the local grammar school whereupon the landlord discovered he had been employing an under aged barman.
Whilst my upbringing could indeed have been said to be sheltered in some respects it certainly wasn't in others. As the eldest of four (sometimes five or six depending on who we fostered) I learned the realities of life from quite an early age. As did most of the animals on the farm.
Life was simple for them. If they misbehaved they went in the pot. I felt sorriest for the ones who did nothing to anger Mrs A but happened to be near her at supper time on days when none of their contemporaries had caused offence. The cat - who was without doubt the worst culprit - escaped by virtue of learning to swim. The first time he snaffled a day-old chick he was drop kicked by Mrs A into the middle of the moat. She didn't expect him to survive but couldn't bring herself to physically wring the neck of the family pet. I actually think the cat grew to enjoy swimming because until the day the dustbin man reversed over him he never gave up on his attempts to get inside the incubator.
My first lesson in business involved Mrs A and the menagerie. I was 13 years old and had purchased with my birthday money a dozen day old Rhode Island Red chicks and a bag of chicken feed. In the due course of time I was able to place a little box of eggs and an adjacent money box outside the front gate of the farm every morning. Occasionally Mrs A would buy half a dozen eggs off me (at a discount of course). Making a profit from 12 laying hens is not easy. They need to work themselves pretty hard just to cover the cost of the food. But I broke even and I was happy. One of the hens, perched on top of the garden wall, used to wait for my return from school every evening then hop onto my shoulder and wait to be cuddled. Mathilda her name was. One evening I arrived home to find no hen on the wall. I hunted everywhere.
'Mrs A!'
'MRS A!!'
'What?'
'Have you seen Mathilda?'
'Who's Mathilda?'
'You know who Mathilda is - the hen''Oh her. Yes. You had her for tea last night'There were three established techniques for winning an argument with my mother. None of them ever worked.
'You were only getting 11 eggs and you had (note the past tense) 12 hens', she explained - in her normal tactful manner.
'So obviously one wasn't laying. And it had to be that one. Just take it as your first lesson in business'.
She left it at that.
Unwittingly I had my revenge - and then some - the following summer.
At 14 - and having pretty much ruined the family holiday the previous summer - I was considered old enough to be left to look after the farm and it's inhabitants whilst the rest of the family escaped for their two weeks camping. My father's parting words as they set off for Dorset were:-
'If you're hungry there's some meat in the freezer'.
So over the following fortnight I ate the meat in the freezer. All except for 2 ducks which I didn't know how to cook. Steak for breakfast and lunch. Shepherds pie made from the minced steak for tea. Maybe some pork chops for supper. Apparently I ate a whole Dexter cow and half a pig. What I had innocently consumed in two weeks was intended to see the whole family through the following winter. For the first time in my life I wasn't hungry. The only sad part about this tale (which is absolutely true) is that I didn't find out the significance of what I had done for another 10 or so years when I overheard my father telling the story at a dinner party. I learned much later that whilst he would never admit it to Mrs A he had found it very funny at the time. She hadn't.
By the time I made it to university - by rather a circuitous route, and having failed in my brief bid for pop stardom - I had eaten in a restaurant precisely once. At a Berni Inn to celebrate my 18th birthday. I had a glass of Liebfraumilch with my inedible steak.
I didn't really drink alcohol and only recall one further restaurant meal during the ensuing four years - in celebration of my 21st birthday. I did not emerge ideally qualified to entertain the great and not-so-good of the construction fraternity.
Gerry McHugh began my training gently. A couple of pints in the local after work. A glass or two of wine with lunch. Progressing to a few pints of Guinness before (and after) the rugby in Dublin. On to a bottle or two of wine at dinner. An afternoon and evening entertaining in our Leicester City FC box.
Then one spring lunchtime he took me for my first curry. It sounds ridiculous now. I was 25. My first curry. And it was washed down with my first bottle of Chablis. I was too frightened of the curry to enjoy the experience but I survived it. Over time I grew to love both. But also to appreciate a fundamental truth which to this day has eluded my one time boss. The two are not ideal bedfellows.
For my 28th birthday in January of 1987 the same man brought me a copy of Hugh Johnson's wonderful
'World Atlas of Wine'. The book was beguiling. Every page I read made me want to visit whichever region was being portrayed. I reached the page on Chablis. The accompanying photograph of a single glass of the golden liquid glinting at me from atop an old oak barrel was too much for me.
Which was how I found myself parked in the centre of Chablis on that life-changing February Saturday afternoon all those years ago.
On the face of it Chablis on a miserable cold, wet, windy Saturday afternoon had little to recommend it. For a start it was deserted. There were maybe a dozen cars in a square that would manage 300. Of human occupation there was no evidence.
To one side of the square was a large double gate. To the side of which was a not-so-welcoming rusting sign proclaiming
'Degustation et Vente - Raoul Gautherin et fils'.
I was already convinced the trip was going to turn out to have been a waste of time but reasoned that I had to do something to justify the 500 mile drive. I knocked on the gate. Madamme reluctantly poked her head round the windows of an upstairs balcony.
'Don't pay any heed to that salivating rabid beast the size of a small horse who looks like he will break his chains any second now before removing your head from your shoulders with his blood-stained canines. He's very friendly really', she said.
Actually I had no idea what she said because I didn't speak a word of French but it would have been comforting if it had approximated to that.
After several minutes an elderly gentleman arrived to open the gate. By use of sign language and loud slow English I transmitted the idea that I would like to taste some wine. We circumnavigated the still frothing beast and monsieur Gautherin opened up his ancient cellar. He made some strange French mumblings following which he poured himself a glass of Chablis, knocked it back, then poured another. He drank this one - a little suspiciously - then poured himself a third. This time he just downed half of it before deeming it acceptable for his prospective client. I noted in passing that all 3 glasses that evidently needed tasting had come from the same bottle. As I eyed up my first glass he downed the rest of his third and poured his fourth.
And that was the afternoon taken care of. I eventually emerged the proud owner of a case of 1985 'Vaudesir' Grand Cru Chablis, with a good chunk of another case already inside me. I left him in his cellar. I had discovered how wine should really taste. I was in love.
That evening I found myself a paying guest of Michel & Sylvie Vignaud - proprietors of the recently opened 'Hostellerie Des Clos' in the town. Two weeks before my arrival Michelin had bestowed up them their first Michelin Star. It was my first (excuse the terrible expression) 'fine dining' experience. I was done for.
It was a long drive from Chablis back to the Midlands that cold, wet Sunday evening. Lots of thinking time. By the time I arrived back on English soil I knew with absolute certainty that my construction days were over - certainly for the foreseeable future. I didn't know what I was going to do but I did know it had to involve Chablis and it had to involve food.
Late on the Monday morning I went in to see my boss.
'Are you sure you know what you are doing?' he asked.
'No' I replied,
'I have no idea, but I'm going to give it a go anyway.'He laughed, shook his head, shook my hand and wished me good luck.
'Come on', he said,
'I'll treat you to a curry and a bottle of Chablis.'
