‘I’ve always been a ladies’ boy, my heroes are women’ I wanted to cr y and run around NAKED!

When Jamie Oliver, now a father of five, spoke to Lynda in 2002 he was on cloud nine. He and wife Jools had had their first child, Poppy, after struggling to conceive, and they’d just had some more happy news...

Jools and Jamie Oliver live in an enchantingly pretty house just off London’s Hampstead High Street. They moved in a week before their five-month- old daughter Poppy was born. When I interviewed Jamie two years ago, he said how much he and Jools wanted a baby. I thought then what a super dad he’d make, and as Jools says, ‘He’s wonderful with her, but I knew he would be. Nothing surprises me about Jamie. Two months ago he went to America and when he got back I’d really dressed up for him. He walked in past me and went straight to Poppy. I said, “I’m here Jamie,” and he said, “Right babe, in a minute.” I’m second to her but I can live with that.’

Six years ago Jamie was a sous-chef at The River Cafe in London when a documentary was being made there. His appearance on it made a big impression, producers began courting him and The Naked Chef was born. ‘The night I was filmed at The River Cafe,’ says Jamie, ‘I wasn’t supposed to be working, but the kitchen was a person short. Needless to say the person who was off and wasn’t really sick hates me now – we fell out.’

At 21 Jamie, who’d had a loving upbringing in the family pub, The Cricketers, in Clavering, Essex, became rich and famous. After his TV series took off, he was inundated with offers. ‘Jools used to say, “Don’t do so much.” I’d say, “I’m so lucky so young, I mustn’t

waste it.” But it takes more of a man to say, “No.” When Poppy was born I thought, “Jamie, you’re not a kid any more, you’ve got to grow up.”’

He is a besotted father and even cooks with Poppy tucked into a baby holder slung around his neck. It’s a bewitching sight – the baby peers out over the holder, fascinated, as Jamie chops and stirs and chatters away.

When I arrive for lunch, Jamie cooks tagliatelle for Jools, who doesn’t eat fish, and bruschetta with crab and lobster and a salad for him and me, accompanied by champagne. We eat in the conservatory overlooking the garden. Being with them is a joy because they’re so welcoming, so entranced with their daughter and their house, which is festooned with fairy lights. They seem a bit like two children playing at house. They met at school as teenagers and have been dotty about each other ever since.

Jamie was born when his father was 21, and he teases his mother by telling people he was conceived on Southend pier. She’s actually quite posh and says he makes her sound like a slapper. ‘She rang me up the other day and gave me a lecture about dropping my Hs. She said, “And I know you work in a kitchen, but there is no need to swear. I’ve been talking to your nan about it.”’

Jools’s mother was a model alongside Jean Shrimpton, her father Maurice a City broker who had a stroke when Jools was eight and died before her wedding in 2000. ‘Mum loves Jamie,’ says Jools. ‘If I ring and say, “Jamie’s being a complete sod,” she’s on his side. She talks me round.’

Jools knew she might have difficulties conceiving because she had polycystic ovaries, and after an operation on her fallopian tubes she started a course of fertility drugs, which she had to take three times a day. It was a difficult time. ‘She wasn’t Jools for six months,’ says Jamie. ‘The drugs muck about with your hormones, which gov- ern to an extent who you are.’ Jools felt paranoid, mixed with the fear that she’d never get pregnant. ‘Every woman who has been through it will understand,’ she says. ‘Everything was going wrong. The house had to have work on it and we moved into a horrible hotel. Then Jamie had to go to Australia and New Zealand and I have a fear of flying. He said, “Just come, you’ll love it.”’

They went and it was in New Zealand that Poppy was conceived. ‘I did a