Long before Dave Myers, one half of the TV duo the Hairy Bikers, was hairy, or a biker, he was a cook. While still a child, he prepared family meals when his mother, a former shipyard crane driver, became so debilitated by multiple sclerosis she was scarcely able to leave her bed. “Dad and I became Mam’s carers, muddling through each day,” said Myers, who has died aged 66. “Sometimes I got out a cookbook and made a pie or a stew out of whatever ingredients we had in.”
His mother had been “a fabulous cook and was often preparing food while I played at her feet”. His father, the foreman of a local paper mill, would put little Dave on the saddle of his motorbike so he could pretend to ride. “I loved the smell of oil and machinery and rubber; just one whiff would set my pulse racing.”
