Si King

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast from BBC Radio 4. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury, that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music's shorter than on the original broadcast, but you can find a version with longer music tracks on BBC Sounds. Listeners will also get access to episodes 28 days earlier than everyone else. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:46

My castaway this week is the T V presenter and cook, Cy King. One half of the phenomenally popular duo The Hairy Bikers, Cy, along with his on screen partner and real life best friend Dave, cooked their way around the world with over thirty successful series and almost as many hit cookbooks.

Presenter1:05

In the sometimes alpha male world of TV cooking shows, the Hairy Bikers were a welcome change, epitomising a male friendship that prioritised fun, but also allowed for vulnerability. Viewers and bikers took them into their hearts. When Dave died from cancer two years ago, some 40,000 bikers joined a ride from London to his native barrowing furnace to pay tribute, with many more lining the streets to wave them on. Cy was born in a pit village near Gateshead. During his teens, motorbikes came into his life along with rock and roll. He was a talented drummer and began volunteering at a local arts centre. He got a break in TV with a role behind the scenes on the kids' show Biker Grove. A few years later, he met Dave, then a makeup artist, during their lunch break on a Catherine Cookson drama. Soon the pair were cooking and riding together and decided to pitch a show of their own. He says, The greatest expression of love is what's on a plate. Cy King, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Si King2:03

Thank you. It's absolutely wonderful to be here. You've made my mom very proud of you. Oh, I'm so pleased.

Presenter2:07

Oh, I'm so pleased. Well, I can't wait to talk about your ma'am because she sounds like she was phenomenal. But I want to start with that quote and a bit of love on a plate, please, Sai. When you're cooking for someone that you love, you care about, what does that look like?

Si King2:16

Sigh

Si King2:21

Oh look, it's the epitome of care. There's a an old Islamic saying that I won't try and pronounce it, but it is about the you can taste the love in the food.

Si King2:30

That was instilled in me from being very, very, very young. You know, if you're going to cook something, you cook it with your heart and you cook it with your soul, and don't cook in a bad mood.

Speaker 32:40

Yeah.

Si King2:41

Because you'll know because you'll taste it. You'll taste it. You'll taste that anger.

Speaker 32:41

Because you're not.

Si King2:47

And it's actually true. I think I've made kicks like that before.

Speaker 32:49

Make cakes like that before.

Si King2:52

It is true. You kind of go, oh, that doesn't taste the same as I did it the last time. Oh, well, that's because I was in a bad mood.

Presenter2:58

Cy, obviously, we're going to talk about Dave today, and we're speaking quite close to the anniversary of his death. He was your best friend on and off screen. How did you mark the day?

Si King3:11

I was actually with my sister in Italy.

Si King3:14

I just took myself off a little quiet moment because he doesn't stop being your best mate just because he's not here. And I had a moment of just remembering with kindness and fondness, you know. Because grief comes in all sorts of different shapes and sizes and it's as as varied.

Presenter3:15

Mm-hmm.

Si King3:30

emotionally as it is as the character and personality of the individual that's feeling it. So it's always a mix of emotion. Grief is never linear, which is why it's so difficult to cope with on occasion. And it never leaves you. There is always that sense of loss.

Presenter3:35

So

Si King3:46

The first, we did two Dave Day motorcycle rides, which were just phenomenal. And this is the official police figures at the first one that we did. A wonderful, wonderful man and Dave's widow actually organized because I was at work. And we had 46,000 motorcycles. The tail of the motorcycles was 35 miles long. Oh, my God.

Presenter4:10

Yeah.

Si King4:11

And we had one hundred and seventy five thousand people lining the route from the Ace Cafe to Barrow and Furnace and

Si King4:20

It was an amazing expression of fellowship and community, and actually, what an honour. And he would have it's that again, it's that mix of emotion, isn't it? So frustrating that he wasn't there to see it, but he would have absolutely loved it. He would have been like.

Presenter4:37

What if

Si King4:38

Yeah.

Presenter4:39

Oh yeah.

Si King4:39

Would he have been right at the front? Oh yeah, 100%. He would have been yeah, he would have loved it. Well, he was right at the front with me and Lil, and Jason Woodcock did an amazing job in his team to just pull it together. And it was a fantastic accolade to a great man. Dave and I rode 650,000 miles on a motorcycle. Oh, man.

Presenter4:44

Big

Si King4:58

And I worked it out actually, and I went through it, I think, because I mentioned it in Dave's liturgy, and it was just the most remarkable thing. It's to the moon and back.

Presenter5:06

Well Cy, we've got so much to talk about and I know that music is a huge passion of yours and that narrowing your discs down has been a real challenge.

Si King5:11

And that did

Si King5:14

It's been like the United Nations Council in our house. It's been like, What should I play, lads? All my sons are like, I'm on the phone going, What should I watch? I mean, I don't know where to start. It's more of a family desert island discs because I'd miss them if I was stuck there. Which so it's all about remembering family really.

Presenter5:18

Spin what should I play?

Presenter5:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Presenter5:33

Well, let's dive in. Tell us about your first choice.

Si King5:36

I mean, it had to be from Tainsite. It's by Linda Svaughan, and it's called A Winter Song.

Si King5:43

I just think Alan and the boys describe beautifully the weather up there because you're on Weirside, aren't you? You're a Weirside last. So you know when that North East Wind comes in and it cuts you to the absolute bone. And it was a metaphor for the structure of this song really that it was about the injustices of the world even then. It struck a chord with me when it was first released because my brother and sister had it.

Presenter5:48

The aura we

Presenter5:49

Boy.

Speaker 35:50

Yeah.

Si King6:10

And it's never left me and it's it's really about just taking a breath and just having a little bit of empathy. The track is about empathy, in my view anyway.

Speaker 36:23

When winter's shadowy fingers Burst pursue you down the street

Speaker 36:31

And your boots no mark a lie about the cove around your feet.

Speaker 36:40

Do you spare a thought for some love whose passage is complete?

Presenter6:49

Linda's Farn and Winter Song. So, Psy King, let's go back to the beginning, shall we? You were born in Kibblesworth, near Gatehead, nineteen sixty-six, the youngest by quite some margin of three.

Speaker 26:54

You will

Presenter7:00

In a very close-knit community, a pit village. And I know that your maternal grandfather, he'd been a winder at the pit, which is a really important job. What did it involve?

Speaker 27:00

In a

Si King7:06

Mm

Si King7:08

But what

Si King7:10

Well, basically, my grandfather was instrumental in getting the lads down into the seam safely without cutting them in off. And by the very nature of that role, you were a focal point for the community because it was all about the men's safety and getting them into the seam that they didn't need. And that trust and being able to walk out into the seam as opposed to having to crawl out in a five-minute inch gap because the winder hadn't got it right. But interesting.

Presenter7:35

Interestingly, your your dad was considered quite exotic, wasn't he? Because he he hadn't grown up there.

Si King7:41

My dad was a cockney. He was a Londoner born and bred. He was from Lambeth, born in the sound of the borebells. He came up to the North East because he'd just come from a six month tour of duty with the Royal Navy during the Second World War.

Speaker 37:56

One

Si King7:57

and he'd got gone home to see his mum. His mum had been killed and his community uh decimated uh in the Blitz.

Si King8:07

So he then turned round, went back to his commissioning officer and said, Um I haven't got anything left. What do I do? He said uh well go up to Newcastle. There's a port of refuge for the Arctic convoys and you're on minesweepers and it was there and during that commission that he that he met my ma'am after his first tour into the Arctic.

Si King8:34

Going Shoreley for a bit that met man, he saw this songbird singing at the Oxford with uh some of the big bands that used to tour for the you know, the war effort. I didn't know him very well because he wasn't well when you were little

Presenter8:45

He wasn't well when you were little, then he'd had an accident on goal, hadn't he?

Si King8:49

He slipped down a a bulkhead down the hatch. He damaged his kidneys during the fall.

Si King8:56

That injury and high blood pressure was eventually what killed him.

Presenter8:59

So that damage kind of progressed because he was around you until you were about eight, right? But he wasn't well. And did that impact your relationship with him?

Si King9:02

Yeah.

Si King9:04

Yeah, that's right.

Si King9:08

Oh, definitely. I mean, it you know, dad was he was one of the first kidney transplant patients in the country. And I remember a big hoo ha and and you know, an ambulance coming with police outriders and a in a squad car and dad being rushed into hospital.

Presenter9:14

Right.

Si King9:24

And then he had the operations

Presenter9:26

It was a double transplant that he had, wasn't it? The the first double transplant.

Si King9:27

that he had, wasn't it? The first double transplant in the country. One of them. I think they'd done it twice before. And because the anti-rejection drugs weren't as sophisticated, obviously, as we have now and the techniques weren't as sophisticated,

Presenter9:39

The tech

Si King9:42

I can't remember exactly, but I think it was about a 72-hour window whereby the kidneys were going to.

Speaker 39:45

Mm-hmm.

Si King9:47

work or not. But unfortunately we got to about sixty hours and then his body just rejected them and and unfortunately we were all rushed into the hospital.

Si King10:00

To see our goodbyes, and as an eight-year-old, that was I had absolutely no idea what was going on.

Presenter10:02

Yeah.

Presenter10:05

Do you remember that?

Si King10:06

Oh, vividly, yeah, yeah. I remember when you have an experience like that, when you're so young and so vulnerable.

Presenter10:12

Mm.

Speaker 310:12

Yeah.

Presenter10:12

Uh

Si King10:14

It stays with you, and it is that stark contrast between a young life and death. He was an amazing man. And the next track that we're going to play, my sister at the time, when she was young, she contracted polio, which is why Banborough Beach and the North East Coast, it's our spiritual home as a family, because my dad and my mum walked my sister up and down the beach in the freezing cold throughout all the seasons. And I remember my mum always used to say, he said, Oh, no, he'd get up in the morning, he said, No daughter of mine's not going to be able to walk. That's what they did for strengthen our legs. Did it work?

Speaker 310:45

To help strengthen our legs.

Speaker 310:47

Did it work?

Presenter10:47

Uh

Si King10:47

It did. She ran cross country for Northumberland and she was an Irish dancer, which is where this next track comes from. Because at Me Dad's Wake, and I remember all the lads from the Townside Irish playing.

Speaker 210:52

Which is

Si King11:00

This track in the front room, this is uh Boil the Breakfast Early by the Chieftains and to hear this.

Si King11:07

And songs like it.

Speaker 311:08

Mm.

Si King11:09

Yeah.

Si King11:09

In your front room and you see your sister dancing in a green dress and stuff. I was like, what is going on here? It was amazing.

Presenter11:47

BOIL THE BREAKFAT EARLY BY THE Chieftains. Life obviously must have changed immeasurably after losing your dad. I know that you said you and your mum Stella grieved through food. Tell me more about that. I'm glad to see you're laughing.

Si King11:54

I know.

Speaker 211:54

Uh

Si King12:02

Yeah, we did, we did. We grieved at the stove top, really. She was one of those women of her age that were enormously unfulfilled, fiercely bright, incredibly applied, incredibly well read.

Presenter12:16

That extended into what you were cooking as well because your dad, with all of his travels in the Navy, he developed quite a kind of sophisticated palate for the time and then would bring things home for her to experiment.

Si King12:28

He would, you know what? Because after my dad left the Royal Navy he went into the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and then the Merchant Service. So he was like in Shanghai and stuff.

Si King12:37

And my mum always used to complain of me we always used to have a laugh about it, but she s she used to say it.

Si King12:42

She said all the other sailors' wives get knock off nylons and dodgy Chanel perfume. She said I get bloody leafs and twigs.

Presenter12:49

And cinnamon and baby.

Si King12:50

Yeah, but and like star and niece and like and me

Presenter12:53

E center

Presenter12:55

So what was she making with it? What was on the menu?

Si King12:57

You'd have like lemongrass, but you'd you'd you'd have it like in a Madeira cake. Bear in mind this is in the 50s. Exactly, because it's not like you could go. Where do you go for that?

Presenter13:05

It's not like you could just

Presenter13:07

Go for that.

Si King13:09

And then me daddy's see it. Well I had it with Beef Stella and it was uh quite hot.

Si King13:13

I was like, well, he said, Okay, well, we'll put a bit more pepper in than normal and we'll put this store and these in and then uh well w what it was with a gravy graham. Yeah, but it wasn't that gravy, like I think it had coconut in it and he said goes, Oh, yeah.

Presenter13:27

Yeah.

Speaker 213:27

He goes all here.

Presenter13:28

Uh

Si King13:28

Yeah.

Presenter13:28

So you're working your way towards a curry but you haven't quite got there yet. And so when when you were you know, when you were you'd lost your dad and you were at the stove top together, is this when you started to learn to cook properly then?

Si King13:29

Yeah.

Si King13:32

Uh

Si King13:33

And so

Si King13:42

Yeah, I think it was definitely that. It was the way of mom showing her love and care, and you're alright, son, you're all right. Because by that point, my brother and sister had.

Presenter13:48

Right.

Si King13:50

Left to get on with our own life. So, mom and I were a really tight team, you know, and that's how she would.

Presenter13:54

Lord.

Si King13:56

Sure security

Si King13:59

The problem with that

Si King14:01

Was that at every age I was the same in stone? So at eight,

Si King14:07

I was eight stone, at nine I was nine stone, at ten I was ten stone, and I was like.

Si King14:14

I don't know what to do with myself any

Presenter14:16

And she was worried about it'cause she took you to Weight Watchers would have been back then.

Si King14:19

She did, yeah, Weight Watchers and um and it was great'cause I was the only kid there because I was going to the big school and my mum didn't want us to be bullied, you know.

Si King14:27

And it was brilliant because...

Si King14:30

You'd have the way in, they'd go, Eee Awasimon, you've lost two pound E well done, son, give our Sai a clap So there'd be all the girls clapping something And then as I was going out they'd go Eee here well done son Here's a moss bot

Si King14:43

It seemed like, Mama got a Mospot, give us that. Well, they stopped giving them stuff. So it was. People really hadn't cottoned on to the emotion.

Presenter14:50

See for

Presenter14:52

optional kind of cycle of

Si King14:53

But it's an expression of love and care. And what do you do with this little lad who's just in? Who's clearly not? They're all grannies and middle-aged women.

Presenter14:53

And yeah.

Presenter14:55

Karen, what do you do with this little

Presenter15:01

Hmm.

Si King15:02

Was there only block there?

Presenter15:04

And how did you feel about it? I mean, what was going on with you at that point? How how were you getting on at school and all of that?

Si King15:09

I was completely disinterested. I just didn't want to be there. And retrospect, I think that.

Si King15:16

I was the only man in the house, and I took on all of that responsibility quite quietly. So you felt.

Presenter15:21

Quietly.

Si King15:24

That was it, and it started and ended there. And any time that I spent away from that focus and time was a waste.

Presenter15:31

Even at school.

Si King15:32

even at school. Because at school I was a fat lad, so it wasn't a really particularly happy place for me to be. So I just thought, well, where am I happy? you know. Oh yeah, mass being at church and and going to Saint Joseph's and, you know, d yeah, that's relatively happy.

Presenter15:45

So you were an altar boy at church, and your mum's faith was very important to her, wasn't it? It was, yeah. Her faith was important.

Si King15:47

And your mum's faith.

Presenter15:52

Sy, on that note, I think we should have some music. Tell us about the next track.

Si King15:56

Well, this is the Liturgy of Saint Anthony, and it's a Gregorian chant. I hope Jane's listening,'cause I used to drive she go, Oh, you're not putting that on again, are you? And I love it. Well, listen to it. It's a remarkable, remarkable piece of music, and so skilled and so elemental and

Si King16:15

Old.

Speaker 216:39

Maybe one

Presenter16:46

The introit from the Liturgy of Saint Anthony, sung by the Lisbon Gregorian Choir.

Presenter16:51

So Psy King, we've talked about two of your great loves, food and music, but I think we should address your third, motorbikes. How did they come into your life?

Si King17:02

When my dad was poorly, I was shipped off'cause he had, you know, kidney dialysis and all that sort of stuff. Not that he was at the house, but it he he went in the hospital to have that.

Presenter17:07

Now that

Si King17:12

and I was shipped off to me Auntie Hilda and Uncle George's.

Si King17:15

who lived in a place called Lamesley, and Lamesley was on a notorious crossroads.

Si King17:20

And

Si King17:21

All the lads would come from the team valley past me unc Mianti Hildes, right to the bottom of the Team Valley, then you hit a crossroads and then they'd fall off their motorcycles or be hit by a car or whatever. So Mianti Hilda, and I remember this very vividly,

Si King17:33

Just going those sheets are worn out, son. Get your scissors and then just s cut them into bandages.

Si King17:39

Because it was a regular occurrence, you know, it was like three or four types of bandages. She would keep bandages, yeah.

Presenter17:41

So she would keep bandages.

Presenter17:44

For the accident

Si King17:45

So what inevitably would happen is me Auntie Hilda would would patch them up until the ambulance arrived, and me Uncle George would take the bikes and stick them in the next to the outside netty. So there was always bits and bobs around to tinker with, and me Uncle George had a great garage because it had a pit in it.

Si King18:01

My uncle George would go, Oh yeah, so have a go at this. This one's running, this one's still running. So my first riding a motorcycle was actually a scooter, where there was just bits missing out of it, off it, and everything. An unfortunate rider it just came off of. Exactly. I remember riding it down the back lane and thinking, Ah, I love I g I g I oh and I must have been about nine.

Presenter18:11

An unfortunate rider had just come off

Speaker 218:21

Uh

Si King18:22

I love this, this is great. And then I'd quite quickly.

Presenter18:25

Yeah.

Presenter18:25

This is so North East uncle coded, I can't even tell you.

Speaker 318:28

Recording

Si King18:30

Yes. So then as the motorcycles came, my Uncle George would go, Oh, no, it's all right, we'll we'll we'll just never you mind'cause we'll keep that. You know. It wasn't anything like insurance companies there going, Oh, we'll have to see if we can fix it and they said, Well, never you mind, son, you can come and pick it up when you like So my Uncle George and I had tinker with these motorcycles in the shed.

Presenter18:47

Yeah.

Si King18:48

and then straighten wheels and you'd be hitting them with like rubber hammer mallets and hide mallets to straighten the wheels out and stuff. And then I'd just get off and and ride them.

Presenter18:57

And when you were older I think one of your first passengers was your mum when she'd done her shopping.

Si King19:02

I used to ride through the estate and down through St Lord Lawson's Field and then down onto Birtley Main Street to pick my mum up and with her shopping and she's

Presenter19:09

So she's got all the how did that work with the b so there's two of you on the bike?

Si King19:12

There's two of us on the bike and one helmet. So we're my mom's got the helmet on, yeah. So we had two bags of shopping on the front indicator stems, two bags of shopping on the rear indicator stems.

Presenter19:15

Who's got the helm on you ma'am?

Presenter19:17

Okay.

Presenter19:21

Two boxes shopping on the r

Si King19:24

And my mum holding two bags of shopping with this massive open-faced helmet on, and it was wobbling about and all that sort of stuff.

Si King19:33

But we all should have told you.

Presenter19:33

Should we insert a don't try this at home here, just for listeners?

Si King19:36

Not the views of the BBC. No, definitely not the views of the BBC. But we always used to have to run the gamut of a police officer in Berkeley called Ginger Eric. And it became a cat and mouse game where my mum would go, I think that's Ginger Eric, because I didn't have any wing mirrors either. So she's on the back looking back. So she's on the back looking back, which is going to be him again. It's Ginger Eric. I was like, oh man, you're joking. So we'd go across the old weather pitch of the comprehensive school and up through the Grass Virgin. And to this day, he's never caught us. It was still free. He didn't like me, my mum, very much. He thought we were way too avant-garde.

Presenter19:49

Mm-hmm.

Presenter19:56

So she's all about looking around.

Presenter20:16

And obviously music was always a feature of family life for you, as you've told us, but you were making music yourself by this point, I think.

Si King20:22

Yeah, it was a way of in supplementing income and doing up and spraying motorcycles and all that sort of stuff. It just sort of gives me mum a helping hand out and um So you were drumming? I was drumming my and I cut my teeth in the pubs and clubs of the north east.

Presenter20:36

Well, let's have some music on that note, I think. So time for disc number four. What's next?

Si King20:40

There's quite a funny story to this. It's a track by Judy Zuk called Stay With Me Till Dawn. So as I was playing around the pubs and clubs, girls started to get interested with the drummer, which is a first for anything. Anyway.

Presenter20:54

Uh

Speaker 220:54

Anything

Si King20:55

I Got a Girlfriend and this track

Si King20:59

I lost my virginity too.

Si King21:02

And I had occasion in this very building. Oh, no, no, it wasn't. It was in another, it was in Wogan House.

Presenter21:08

The old radio too would be

Si King21:09

So I'm there at Radio Two and then this vision.

Presenter21:10

So

Si King21:14

Comes through the double doors in its judy zook.

Si King21:17

And I said to him,

Si King21:19

Hello, Judy, it's I lost my virginity to you. I mean, not you. I mean, you know, the track. And I was a complete gibbering idiot. She said, oh, it was so lovely. It was such a lovely moment.

Presenter21:29

Did she know who you were? Was she

Si King21:31

Yeah, she went. Oh, I love the shows. So this is a track that I.

Si King21:35

Uh I lost my virginity too as a drummer.

Speaker 321:43

Yeah.

Speaker 321:46

Beja tonight

Speaker 321:49

Yes, I needed enough.

Speaker 321:53

Tonight And I'll show you sunset if you'll stay

Presenter21:58

Yeah.

Presenter22:10

Judy Zook and Stay with Me Till Dawn.

Presenter22:15

So you'd taken A-levels in, I think it was communication studies, politics and economics.

Si King22:18

BISC

Si King22:20

Yeah.

Presenter22:21

And after leaving college you continued gigging?

Si King22:23

Yeah.

Presenter22:24

At that point, you joined a band called Cyan. Yes, Cyan, yes. And it was while you were with them. In Newcastle at the gig that you met your future wife, Jane.

Si King22:33

Yeah, we did this gig, it was for Blade and Races. It was a fantastic occasion. And I just saw this woman approach and met her a couple of times, but I didn't think she was arriving. And then she said, Do you want to come up to my mum and dad's caravan in Derwentwater? And I said, Yeah, I do. And I went over the caravan, and that was it.

Presenter22:53

The two of you yeah, you you fell in love pretty quickly and and oh, and then she got pregnant with your son, I think within a year, wasn't it?

Si King22:53

The two he

Si King22:59

Yeah, she did.

Presenter23:01

Yeah.

Si King23:02

Twenty-two, yeah.

Presenter23:03

How did you feel?

Si King23:04

Absolutely terrified. I was hustling, I was a gigging musician and I didn't know what to do. But at that point, I thought, God, dear me.

Si King23:13

I've got to get my act together. So I went and drove the mini bus because I thought I better get some money in actually because my girlfriend's baby.

Presenter23:20

Maybe it's only way. Yeah.

Si King23:22

That's when I took a flyer off the off the wall. And I applied for this job with the BBC and it was a pilot of a children's drama series called Bite of Grove.

Presenter23:34

Gloria.

Si King23:34

Launched a thousand careers, especially Anton Tech. It di yeah, Antontech as well. Well, I know Anton Tech re from those days where I know I know them less well now that they're mega famous, but

Presenter23:44

You knew them when there were babies.

Si King23:44

We need a weather

Si King23:45

I knew them when there were bands, yeah, I used to pick them up in the Ford Sierra.

Presenter23:48

And eventually that took you to several Catherine Cookson dramas. Cinder Path, The Gambling Man, I remember watching them in the early 90s.

Si King23:53

Sense

Speaker 323:53

Two.

Si King23:55

No, remember.

Speaker 323:55

Uh

Si King23:56

Yeah

Speaker 323:57

Uh

Si King23:57

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter23:57

And behind the scenes, that was where you met Dave in 1992. What were your first impressions of him?

Si King24:03

Well, I thought, what's it? There's a bloke, there's a makeup artist, what's going on here? He came out of the interview and came at the pub, and as he came down at the pub, they said, Look, you've got the job. So Dave was in the pub in the afternoon celebrating that he'd got the job. I don't know, it was just we got each other. You know, we're very, very, very different people.

Si King24:24

We got each other at that point. That's where it was a lifelong friendship.

Presenter24:29

Well, Cy, I want to find out what happened next. And obviously, the the journey that you took together, there's plenty to say about that. But first, let's go to the music, your fifth choice. What is it?

Si King24:39

I was working incredibly long hours and I just had my head down because all I could focus on was my family and the career. But actually, what was happening is that there was a shift towards just earning money because you never knew when the next contract was coming up. And this track, Jane sent me it in a tape. You know, she sent me this lovely compilation because I was away from home so much. And this track particularly was the point where.

Si King25:07

I realized that actually doing what I did had a cost and I was away from the people that I loved.

Si King25:14

And because of those experiences, Amir had started to change a little bit and and it was a

Si King25:23

It was a it was a difficult time.

Presenter25:27

But you're taking it to the island with you today. It obviously still has a place in your heart, even though it takes you back to something that was tough.

Si King25:34

It does, it's a very special song and and Martha Wainwright's vocal on it is is remarkable, I think.

Speaker 325:44

Your words in my memory

Speaker 325:49

I like music to

Speaker 325:53

The miles from where you are.

Speaker 325:59

Lay down on the

Speaker 326:02

Cold grounder.

Speaker 326:04

I'm afraid that something picks me up.

Presenter26:08

Uh

Speaker 326:09

Uh

Presenter26:09

Sets me down in your mouth

Presenter26:13

Set fire to the third bar snow patrol featuring Martha Wainwright. So Psy King, when did you and Dave Myers decide to pitch a show?

Si King26:22

A show of your own. I was one of the location managers on the Harry Potter films, the first two Potter films.

Presenter26:27

The fist

Si King26:29

And I thought, well, what what do I do in the hell?

Si King26:32

So I wrote this.

Si King26:35

idea down. And then I sent it off to Dave, who was working in Canada with Christopher Lambert. He was his own private makeup artist. So Dave was at like the top of his trade. And it was just when emails had started, you know, so he was just hoping that it would get there.

Si King26:52

And he said, Well, Guinea, I've I've showed it around for a few people and nobody thinks it's rubbish.

Si King26:56

So so Dave and I just started to knock it about, knock the idea about and

Presenter27:00

'Cause you were already cooking together, drying together, like

Si King27:03

I used to go up when time and money would allow and the family, you know, commitments would allow that I'd ride the bike from Newcastle up to Aberdeenshire where Dave was and Huntley, you know, and then

Si King27:15

And then we'd ride around the Highlands of Scotland and and drink and eat and just be silly on motorcycles, which is what we loved, and that was always a lovely thing. At the end of a a long shoot, you know, you'd been working hard eighteen hour days for three months at a time. We shot this pilot on Rowe Island in Borrow and Furness, where Dave lived at the time.

Si King27:35

And it took us about three years to get it off the ground. Got the call saying, all right, lads, you've been commissioned, and we're off.

Presenter27:41

And that's that.

Si King27:42

And that was that?

Presenter27:43

And we've already called the Hairy Bikers at that point.

Si King27:45

No, the hairy bike just came from a uh it came from an email exchange uh f from somebody and we still to this day don't know where it came from.

Presenter27:54

So tell me about that first series then, BBC One two thousand six. Uh you went to Ireland, Portugal, Transylvania and crossed the Namibian Desert.

Presenter28:04

What do you remember about it?

Si King28:06

There's one memory that would I'm lying there and with my best mate. I can see it's a red, red it's me it's called Mesam Crater, and it's red earth. And I just sniffed rhinoceros poo in the wild. Well, they eat myrrh, so it's the nicest smelling poo.

Si King28:25

you've ever smelt. And you could see, you know, long eared foxes and and the dusk came and the Brandtberg mountain is set in red as the sunset falls behind it and the silhouette comes and s and then it's just like

Si King28:39

This duvet of darkness that's pulled over your head like you were in bed and the whole of the Milky Way lights up.

Presenter28:43

You were in

Si King28:48

You're 175 miles away from any human being, any major conurbation, and it's darkness.

Si King28:56

And I remember turning this to him, and we just went.

Si King29:04

That is a lasting, a lasting memory. It's lovely.

Presenter29:08

Sy, you told me those amazing statistics that you figured out about how you far you and Dave travelled together, literally to the moon and back in terms of the mileage that you covered. But as you also mentioned, you know, all of that success meant time away from your family. I know that the the schedule at the height of the bikers was absolutely crazy. You were, you know,

Si King29:14

Gambolition

Si King29:15

To the moon

Speaker 229:16

Yeah.

Si King29:16

In terms of the

Speaker 229:16

I was

Speaker 229:18

Hmm.

Si King29:30

Yeah.

Presenter29:31

Away from home, I think, two hundred days of the year.

Si King29:33

And that was just filming days. We also we were contracted for two hundred days a year, not including travel days.

Presenter29:40

Wow. So so just away all the time. I mean and you've said that the pressures of that schedule and and maintaining it did contribute to to your split from your then wife, Jane.

Si King29:47

Control.

Si King29:51

Yes, yes, definitely did. Definitely did. Well, you ch it ch it just changes you. You know, you you change and your pri you you have to experience. Oh, dear me. I I

Presenter29:58

How did they change?

Si King30:03

I'd seen so much I didn't know what to say any more.

Si King30:09

And that's the worst possible thing you can. And I think that's a good idea.

Speaker 330:12

What do you mean by that? Uh

Si King30:13

Well, I didn't know what to say to anybody, you know, because everybody, you know, all my mates, and they're still my mates, you know.

Si King30:21

There are nurses, there are social workers there. So you could chat about your experience, but the longer that you were involved in that world, the less I wanna what do you say when you're at a party, you know, oh, what have you done? Oh, well, I've just come back from Namibia, or Kenny, how was that? It was great.

Speaker 330:26

Uh

Presenter30:26

Uh

Speaker 330:26

Uh

Presenter30:26

Long

Presenter30:37

Because I'm not there, so

Si King30:37

Because I'm not there, so I don't know the day-to-day of everybody's lives and what the crack is and putting a distance.

Presenter30:42

So it's putting a distance between you and the people you were close to.

Si King30:44

Yeah. And it because it's inevitable. And and the thing is that then what what what then happens is that you become as a person you become very inconsistent emotionally because you don't know where to put it. And that's very difficult for for for Jane, particularly the mother of my children. And it's the d it it's the most destructive thing because nobody ever knows where they are and nobody ever kn there's no sense of deep security there.

Presenter30:46

It's inevitable.

Presenter30:54

Uh

Speaker 330:54

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 331:00

Motherfucker.

Speaker 331:01

And it's

Si King31:10

So

Si King31:13

So did you

Presenter31:13

So did you feel under stress at that time?

Si King31:16

Hugely, yeah, yeah, hugely, hugely,'cause uh I don't mind admitting I completely lost myself, you know. But that was a very private thing for me and my family and my

Presenter31:17

Yeah.

Presenter31:22

But

Si King31:25

And my friends, you know, they're

Presenter31:25

Yeah.

Si King31:27

And it wasn't horrible, it was just, well, you know, he's away from home, so

Presenter31:28

It was just

Presenter31:31

Well in the

Si King31:31

Well

Presenter31:34

Exactly. And also I think, you know, having heard and talked to you about how utterly rooted you are in your the whole thing for you as friends, family, community, that was what mattered most and how ironic that your success would

Presenter31:49

Which draws on all of that would kind of take you away from it. I mean, that's a real sting in the tail.

Si King31:54

It is. Yeah.

Presenter31:55

Sy, it's time to go to the music. Your sixth choice today. What's it gonna be?

Si King32:00

It's from Thin Lizzie's Live and Dangerous album. It's my first album, my first double album, and it was eight quid. And it's uh Stell in Love With You by Thin Lizzie and it's the live version from the Live and Dangerous album.

Si King32:13

And this was the first time that I learnt Brian Downey is a huge hero of mine and he teaches drums somewhere in Ireland, I think still, I hope. Because he does, he shuffles through this track and it's it's exquisite in my view.

Si King32:34

I love it.

Speaker 332:44

I think I'll fall

Speaker 332:47

He said

Speaker 332:51

If I don't find something else to do

Speaker 332:58

The sadness that never ceases

Presenter33:05

Thin Lizzie and still in love with you.

Presenter33:09

Psy King, in twenty fourteen, you went through a very difficult time. You suffered a brain aneurysm. It was during the time that you'd separated from Jane. You were living alone. How did you know something was seriously wrong?

Si King33:22

I remember lying down on the settee in my little cottage and watching the rugby and it was a Calcutta Cup game.

Si King33:29

And as I was watching it I was thinking

Si King33:33

Never felt this exhausted ever. I mean, we haven't really you know, it's been really busy, but you know, normally we just eat that sort of stuff up.

Si King33:42

And then I looked at the T V again and then the players were kind of falling off the screen. So I rang the R V I and said I'm coming in. I got myself into the thing and I was a bit like

Presenter33:47

This is the hospital.

Si King33:53

And um

Si King33:54

I was a bit all over the place.

Si King33:56

And they lay me down, they did a lump puncture and they said, b you've you've you've had a brain aneurysm that's that's leaking starting to leak. And I had the operation and again it was just a tumultuous time, it was awful emotionally all over the shop. It was just awful. And I had the operation And yeah, it was a diff a difficult, very difficult part of my li part of my life and for not just for me, but for the people that love me and particularly for my sons and and my and my

Presenter34:18

Very difficult.

Presenter34:20

I mean

Presenter34:22

Yeah.

Si King34:26

And and for Jane, you know, it was it was difficult it was difficult.

Presenter34:27

Was it

Presenter34:29

And it was a good eighteen months before you were probably better.

Si King34:32

Yeah, it was it was a funny thing because um I I remember Prof White saying to me, he said, Yeah, look, he said, you know, we don't really understand why there's a l levels of fatigue, but you're not going to be able to push through them, so you just got to give in to them.

Si King34:47

And he said then what happens is you can manage it.

Presenter34:47

And he said

Si King34:50

And that's what I did. I mean, it literally I'd get up in the morning, I'd make my way down the stairs and I'd have to sit at the bottom of the stairs'cause uh I sit at uh sit on the set E before I went and made myself a cup of tea. It used to take me two and a half hours to make a cup of tea. God just so getting down

Presenter35:02

Sure we

Presenter35:04

Just from getting downstairs.

Si King35:06

It's just sore poop.

Si King35:08

What he did say he said if you'd gone back to bed, you wouldn't have been here.

Si King35:12

It's just as well you came in, because it's leaking.

Si King35:16

So then so that was that and uh

Presenter35:17

And uh

Presenter35:18

So that was all 2014.

Presenter35:22

Moving ahead, Sy, in May twenty twenty two, Dave got a diagnosis of his own. He was diagnosed with cancer and I know first hand how difficult it is to have to tell the people in your life who love you that you've had a diagnosis like that.

Speaker 235:33

Mm-hmm.

Si King35:37

Yeah.

Presenter35:38

How did he deal with it?

Si King35:39

What Dave and Lil and his family decided to do was it was all about the fight. It was all about the fight.

Si King35:46

When you have that, and it was Dave's character and personality anyway, it would always be about the about forward momentum and fight and you know, going, No, come on, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this.

Presenter35:51

Full Roman

Presenter35:53

Uh

Speaker 335:53

Yeah.

Speaker 335:57

Mm-hmm.

Si King35:58

It's not for me to see anything different. It it's for me to fall into line and kind of go, Okay, there well, this is what we're doing. So if it's all about the fight and that's what Dave wants and that's what you all want, then it's uh incumbent on me as your friend to do that.

Speaker 336:03

Sorry.

Presenter36:04

Yeah.

Presenter36:11

Yeah.

Si King36:13

And that's what we did. It was all about the fight and keeping it going, keeping the wheels on as far as we could, because clearly they had come off. It was like that, keeping those motorcycle wheels turning a little bit.

Presenter36:23

Yeah, and and you did, you know, and you kept filming as well for Christmas twenty twenty three, you shot Harry Biker Special and that was going back to say thank you to all of the medics who'd treated Dave during that year.

Si King36:30

Yeah.

Si King36:33

Exude.

Presenter36:36

Yeah.

Si King36:36

Yeah.

Presenter36:36

That must have been a a really emotional

Si King36:39

Uh

Presenter36:39

Changed voice

Si King36:39

It was it was very emotional, she put it. We had we had, you know, people around us that cared and understood and knew knew the nuances, so knowing the nuances is always is always more difficult.

Speaker 336:50

Yeah, as

Si King36:51

Mm-hmm.

Si King36:52

But all I was there to do was support my mate in in whatever him and his wife had decided.

Presenter36:56

Uh

Presenter37:00

So Dave died twentieth of february twenty twenty four. He was sixty six and at that time he'd been bestmates for thirty two years and Harry Bikers for twenty three.

Si King37:03

Sixth.

Presenter37:11

You've written about how difficult that time was for you in the aftermath of his death. You said you felt like jumping on a bike yourself and not coming back. How did you navigate?

Speaker 237:20

Uh

Si King37:20

How did you

Presenter37:22

Your own grief. You said, you know, it stays with you and it it's not linear, it changes.

Si King37:27

Mm, it doesn't it it it it it you

Si King37:34

You just do, and I'm not trying to be flippant, you just do. It it's because th there is no alternative, you know, and people deal with grief in very different ways. I'm quite private about mine.

Presenter37:47

And the beauty, I mean, that that brings me to Dave Day. That's incredible. I mean, as you said, those two rides that you did actually in his honour.

Si King37:47

And the beef.

Si King37:50

That is

Speaker 237:51

Yeah.

Si King37:54

Actually, in his honour.

Presenter37:56

I want to ask about June 2024, tens of thousands of bikers.

Si King38:01

Tens of thousands of people.

Presenter38:01

Leading them from the Ace Cafe in London, legendary biker.

Si King38:06

Yes.

Presenter38:07

Roadside biker cafe.

Si King38:09

Uh

Presenter38:09

Up to Barrow in Furnace. I mean, what was it like seeing the.

Si King38:14

Enormous crowds.

Presenter38:20

I mean it is unreal.

Si King38:21

It is unreal. That's not my figures, that that was the what the police roughly said it was,'cause they couldn't count them.

Presenter38:27

What did you think would happen? What were you expecting?

Si King38:30

I I got the easy bit because I just rocked up. The main impetus to it all was a lovely guy who we affectionately know as Woody, but um Jason Woodcock and Lily Oner, his wife, they were the main and then the team that Woody put together, Laura and all of the gang, they were just amazing and

Si King38:49

It it was an amazing thing.

Presenter38:51

It must have been healing for all of you.

Si King38:54

I think it probably was. It it was a a reflection of belonging. To have everybody together in in a joyous celebration of your bestmates.

Si King39:04

Life.

Si King39:05

And also your husband's life, and Woody was a great friend to Dave too.

Speaker 339:13

Mm-hmm.

Si King39:14

The three of us led it. It wasn't me just leading it. It was lead it was with Woody and it was with um it was with Lily. And it it it was that was pretty cathartic because you just thought,

Si King39:27

That's an express. And what was it? It's really simple. It was just an expression of love and affection for what?

Si King39:34

for for for Dave and for the and for the Hairy Bikers as a collective, you know.

Si King39:40

It was about that expression of well, actually we belong and this is a way of showing us uh of showing the wider community that actually we're all all right. We might be a bit greasy and a bit scratchy every now and then, but we're all all right, you know.

Presenter39:52

Riley

Si King39:53

And there wasn't a bit of bother, there wasn't any any issues at all.

Si King39:57

And there's an incline on the M6 just outside of Lancaster.

Si King40:01

And as you come up and you could just I couldn't see anything else but motorcycles for as far as the eye could see.

Si King40:07

with the lights on and and everybody waving on uh and then riding into the community on the Air Six Ninety and then into Barrow and Furnace. That community was

Presenter40:10

Mm.

Si King40:17

Unbelievable.

Presenter40:18

I don't think there was anyone in the house that day.

Si King40:20

No, they definitely it was it was unbelievable and very kindly the BBC came and came and covered it. Yeah

Presenter40:25

Yeah, the footage is online if people can you know, we see it on the still on the news website as well.

Si King40:30

It was that thing about people opening their gardens and their spare rooms because, you know, the corporate eye the corporate lot had kind of put put prices up that are absolutely ridiculous because they knew what was happening, so people couldn't afford to stay. Not everybody, the community was great, but the the international corporate holding companies it was just an absolute joke.

Presenter40:32

Spare rooms because

Si King40:50

You know, you'd have a room for 90 quid, and then when that happened, it was 450. It was shocking behaviour. And anyway, it was great because the community just sidelined them and went, Yeah, whatever. And then everybody opened their doors and their spare rooms, and there were tents pitched in gardens, and oh, you'd be all right, lads, come here, we'll cook your breakfast. And it was, you know.

Presenter40:55

But you

Presenter41:07

Poi PR

Si King41:11

A beautiful expression of, again, just a community reacting to another community, and that's what life's about as well. It has to be that.

Presenter41:21

Psy King, it's time to go to the music. Disc number seven please, what are we going to hear and why are you taking it with you to your island?

Si King41:27

This would be a reminder for me of that life that I left when I was before I was stranded really, because this is um by a wonderful singer-songwriter Troy Casadelli um who and the track is really about well, to me, it's about the many faces of deceit.

Speaker 341:45

Came back from the city Say cuz where you been Says brother I been living on the wire

Speaker 341:55

Live down in that gutter where the fittest survive And plow through them fields of fire Had a kneel in a vein

Speaker 342:09

Profited the same Had a friend with no name

Presenter42:14

Let's

Presenter42:15

Troy Casa Daily and On the Wire.

Presenter42:18

Psy King, earlier this year you took part in your first major solo television project since Dave died. How did it feel to be filming again and obviously for him not to be there?

Si King42:30

I'm at a point now where where the the first year I didn't want to do anything at all, I just didn't have it in me. And then when I was shooting the show, I felt a a sense of guilt, you know, that I was doing something that when he wasn't there, you know. It was a very odd

Presenter42:42

Get along.

Si King42:44

Experience because I was having to remember and deliver pieces to camera that I'd go, Oh, you can do it, miss, you know.

Si King42:52

And what was wonderful was that I had my lovely, lovely, gorgeous, talented crew and the creative shorthand just came back like that. It was wonderful. So yeah, it was just odd that he wasn't there.

Presenter43:05

You've also opened a restaurant proper in my hometown of Sunderland at the new Sheepfords development, which is just by the Stadium of Light.

Si King43:10

It's a new sh

Si King43:12

And which is just

Si King43:14

Yes, it is.

Presenter43:14

How does it feel to have a place of your own in the North East?

Si King43:16

It's wonderful and and also to make it even more special it's a local lad that's done it who was born and bred in Sunderland used his family money put his money where his mouth is and has created something pretty special and it's well patronized by the local community and what was one of the ethos of Propper is that if we can't get the ingredients within a 60 mile radius then it doesn't get into a pie.

Presenter43:39

Yeah, and what kind of gaffer are you? What kind of boss are you?

Si King43:42

I have no embarrassment or otherwise saying because I know that for some mad reason in the world that we live in that that it's become a bit of a dirty word, but I'm a committed socialist and I run my businesses in that way.

Si King43:56

So

Si King43:58

You know, everybody gets paid more than the living wage, a considerable bit more than the living wage, and they're valued for what they do and the skill sets that they bring and their care and kindness. Because if you value the people that are working with you, not for me, they're not working for me, it's a we run it as a collective, collaborative. Everybody, everybody has a say in the business.

Presenter44:18

Well, Si, I'm sorry to say I'm going to have to tear you away from your beloved North East and cast you away on your desert island next. It's almost time. You're a seasoned traveller, you're a very experienced outdoor cook, so I'm imagining that life on the desert island is not going to be as challenging for you as it might be.

Si King44:23

Yeah.

Si King44:24

It's all

Si King44:35

No, I'd really quite like it. You're looking forward to it? I am looking forward to it very much. Very much. What are you imagining?

Presenter44:37

You're looking forward to it.

Presenter44:39

Um

Si King44:43

I mean, how desert is it?

Presenter44:45

Well, I always think it's in the mind of the beholder.

Si King44:47

Oh, perfect. Well, it's quite a big island. Right. Beautiful sand, beautiful rock formations.

Si King44:55

Fantastic. I love uh flora and fauna and trees and things you can make things out of, you know. Handy plants.

Presenter45:02

Pino one.

Si King45:04

You know.

Si King45:05

There are quite large relieves that you can build roofs from and stuff. Nice. And then quite a lot of wildlife.

Si King45:13

Hopefully.

Si King45:15

Or otherwise I'm you know, I'll not be having the trouble with my weight anymore. And um and just a a a diversity of landscape because I'm terrible for that. The flatlands I can't do.

Presenter45:25

Yeah.

Si King45:26

I can't do it. I need the hills.

Presenter45:27

We need those cells.

Si King45:28

I am a bit bunkers like that, yeah.

Presenter45:30

I think you're going to have plenty to keep you busy, and you might meet a friendly monkey. You never know. Well, I'll be.

Si King45:34

Well, that'd be nice, wouldn't it?

Presenter45:35

We'll give you one more disc, of course, before we cast you away. Your final choice, please, Psycho. What is it?

Si King45:40

What is it? My final choice is by um it's a track by Journey and it's called Ask the Lonely. And the reason for this track is very simple.

Si King45:51

Is that when the boys we were the music has always been in my Jane has a gigantic knowledge when the boys were grown up, Jane, gigantuan knowledge of music. The lads have got a gigantuan knowledge of music, dead up to date, all of that. But when they were little, and we used to sit them in the back of the car on the way to school or when on a on a trip up to the coast or whatever.

Si King46:15

They'd all ask, Oh, Daddy, Daddy, put Astalule on

Si King46:19

And I'll go what?

Si King46:21

Pasalule, Grand Daddy, Pasa Lule and I'll go, Yeah, all right and yeah, and actually what it was was uh and you'd hear them singing it in the back, they knew all the words, apart from what the track was actually called, which is Ask the Lonely. But when you listen to it and put in your head Pas the Lule, that's exactly what Steve Perry is saying.

Speaker 346:44

Everybody

Speaker 346:47

Will have nothing concealed.

Speaker 346:51

Hey, cool! I'm still out!

Speaker 346:53

Will you feel aloud?

Speaker 346:56

Uh

Speaker 346:57

Not your own.

Speaker 347:01

Will your lost bell?

Presenter47:10

That is Journey and Past the Lule, also known as Ask the Lonely. So Psyching, I'm going to send you away to the island. I'm giving you the books to take with you, obviously. The Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and one other book.

Si King47:19

Uh

Presenter47:22

Any that you like. What have you gone for?

Si King47:25

I've gone for the complete works of William Dalrymple.

Presenter47:28

Okay.

Si King47:28

I think he is a remarkable mind. And he touches bits of culture that are historically resonant, but also

Presenter47:35

That are

Si King47:39

Are highly relevant to the current day. I just love the way that he weaves history and narrative. One of our

Si King47:46

National treasures of a historian. I think he's a remarkable man. You can also have luxury items, Sai. What will that?

Presenter47:52

Bupping.

Si King47:52

Solar fridge

Presenter47:54

Oh, so I'm afraid you can.

Si King47:55

I think I could manage to kind of get a fire lit.

Presenter47:58

Mm-hmm.

Si King47:58

And keep thou corn?

Presenter47:59

Mm-hmm.

Si King48:00

But the problem is it's a desert island. Normally you think hot. So I was thinking, well, what happens if I get a load of fish that I'm catching? And where where am I going to put it? I could dry them, I could smoke them. But you'd get bored with that, wouldn't you?

Presenter48:10

Will you get

Presenter48:12

Yeah, you would. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, while you're taking the fridge, do you want me to stash anything in there? What am I popping in? I mean, I'm giving you an empty fridge, not just white goods.

Si King48:19

Snowpoint gives

Si King48:21

Rum might be handy. I mean, a tropical island without rum is like, you know, Fred without ginger. Or any alcohol at all.

Presenter48:23

I mean

Presenter48:25

Yeah.

Si King48:29

Really, an endless supply of booze.

Presenter48:33

I'll booze the fridge up and make sure the solar system.

Si King48:35

See, I knew I loved you. I knew I'm soft as Gladsman. I knew I was saying.

Presenter48:40

And finally, which track of the eight that you've shared with us today would you save from the waves first if you needed to?

Si King48:46

Ask the lonely my journey, because it would be my boys, I'd have my boys in my mind.

Si King48:52

Woe betide anybody that gets between me and them.

Presenter48:55

Psyking, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Si King48:59

Thank you, Lauren. It's been an absolute pleasure. And yeah, a pocketless tick. Thank you.