WHAT I KNOW ABOUT WOMEN

ACTOR JOHN PARTRIDGE

John Partridge, 48, played Christian Clarke in eastenders and won Celebrity MasterChef in 2018. John lives with his husband Jon, 38, in greenwich, South-east London.

THEY MAKE THE BEST ROLE MODELS

EVERY boy needs a big sister. Fiona is seven years older than me and is my protector. When we were young I wanted to do what she was doing and with dancing, it was a case of ‘Monkey see, monkey do’. I tagged along with my mum, Bridie, when she used to pick my sister up from class.

I was only allowed to do tap at first as Dad worried I’d be bullied. I come from a working-class background in Radcliffe, Manchester. It was a happy childhood — poor but I wanted for nothing.

When I was nine, I won a scholarship to the Royal Ballet School in London and it broke Mum’s heart to let me go.

If I came home from school saying I needed a gladiator costume for the next day, it would be done. But cooking was not her thing.

She was a dignified lady who worked in nursing all her life.

I was only 17 when my father passed away and Mum had to take on more work. She left Ireland for Manchester at 15 and I began working in London at 16. I think I got my tenacity from her.

In Mum I had a love that will be unrivalled in my life, so it was so painful to lose her in 2017. She was diagnosed with both Alzheimer’s and dementia in 2010, and used to joke, ‘What a bargain, I’ve got two for the price of one.’

The way they rip through a family is awful. Mum was such a gracious, quiet lady who would have hated what she had become.

When I won MasterChef, it was a year to the day I lost her. I definitely had an angel on my shoulder. I could just imagine her with a tea towel at the stove.

I’ve been sober since October 2017, six months after Mum died. Her death was so painful but it helped me be brave enough to change. It was her parting gift.

John’s cookbook, there’s no taste Like home, is available from bookshops and amazon.