MEETING THE HAIRY BIKERS

Selling someone a ropey old motorbike that broke down out on its first ride out, hardly seems the best way to win friends and influence people. But that was exactly the start of a beautiful friendship for Simon King and Dave Myers – better known as the Hairy Bikers. 

The duo are familiar faces on our TV screens with many travel/culinary series under their belts, such as The Hairy Bikers’ Food Tour of Britain; Hairy Bikers’ Best of British; Hairy Bikers’ Asian Adventure and many more. Then there’s Dave on Strictly Come Dancing as well as their publication of a host of cookery books, plus guest appearances at shows and festivals. 

A few years back we went to the Isle of Man for the Queenie Festival – queenies being small scallops found in the waters around the Isle of Man. And who did we spot on the beach cooking queenies – but the Hairy Bikers. Our main interview with them however happened at the BBC Good Food Show at the NEC when we were invited to go ‘backstage’ to talk to them about their lives and career. 

We loved hearing about their early years. The duo have been friends for around 30 years and it all began when they met in 1992 while working on the Catherine Cookson series in the North East of England. Si was the second assistant director and Dave was head of prosthetics, hair and make-up. 

“It was The Gambling Man, Robson Green was in it. Dave had to set fire to him, I had to put him out!” Si told Rob and I in that colourful Geordie accent of his. “We’ve both been into bikes ever since we were kids. Meeting on the Catherine Cookson set, I had this bike I was selling, so I sold it to Dave.”

“Yes, he sold me a remarkably bad motorcycle,” said Cumbria-born Dave. 

“Ah, yes, but it was shiny!” quipped Si.

“Yes, it was shiny but half a mile into my journey it decided to self-destruct. I headed back to Si to get my money back – and we’ve been great friends ever since.” 

As kids, they both had similar childhoods in the fact that motor bikes fascinated them. “We’ve always had bikes, long before we should have,” admitted Dave. “When I was twelve I was bombing around the entries illegally on a motorbike.” 

 As for Si, he was into building bikes from the bits he always found in his Aunt Hilda’s shed. “She lived close to an accident blackspot, and I’m not saying she picked up pieces from the road, but these bike bits were always in her shed. In those days, that’s what you did, built up these bikes.” 

With both of them loving the open road, they teamed up to enjoy a fantastic career travelling the world and trying out the local cuisine on the way.

Si said, “I think learning about a place’s cuisine is probably the best way of learning about the culture of that town or country.” 

On their travels, the pair have certainly experienced a vast range of foods, although Dave pointed out that some of the things they’ve supposed to have eaten are pure myth. However, they both recalled a time in Portugal when Si went for something on the menu that sounded great but turned out to be unwashed, uncleaned crispy pig’s intestines. Not surprisingly the thought of tripe is now his idea of food hell.

And, as it turned out, a loathing for tripe is yet another thing the pair have in common. “I’d say tripe is my food hell too,” said Dave. “My father used to eat raw tripe, soaked in vinegar and eaten raw. The smell was foul.”

Dave said that he really got into cooking during the days he was at Goldsmith Art College in London. “I was a better cook than I was an artist,” he said, adding that it wasn’t a case of baked beans and student food for him. “My cooking was quite elaborate to say the least. I ran up a heck of an overdraft on food, that’s all I can say!” 

“These days when I’m cooking for the family, especially after I’ve been cooking something special for a show, they’re begging me to cook something ordinary. “Please can we just have a burger!” 

Si’s love of cooking stems from when he was a little boy. “My father was a very good cook, both parents were, so I’ve always been around food, I’ve just grown up with cooking. It’s such a natural thing. The best bit about cooking though, is cooking for the people you care about.” 

How true! 

And it was a lot of fun meeting them. 

Thank you Hairy Bikers for taking time out to talk to us!