Acerbic critic AA Gill dies weeks after revealing his ‘full English of cancer’
AUTHOR, commentator and restaurant critic AA Gill has died at the age of 62, just three weeks after telling the world he had been diagnosed with ‘an embarrassment of cancer, the full English’.
In what proved to be his final restaurant column, the Sunday Times writer and ex-husband of Home Secretary Amber Rudd described his condition with characteristic frankness and humour, saying: ‘I have a trucker’s gut-buster, gimpy, malevolent, meaty malignancy.’
The Scots-born father of four also used the review to announce he intended to marry his partner of 23 years, Nicola Formby. It is not known whether he managed to fulfil this wish before he died yesterday morning.
Gill’s agent, Ed Victor, said: ‘Adrian brought courage and clarity to everything he observed, be it seeing human disaster in a refugee camp or bringing his sharply focused views on TV and food.
‘He lived life to the full and enhanced his readers’ view of life by originality, humour and sheer brilliance as a wordsmith.’
Gill was best known for his restaurant reviews which could be viciously barbed and had the power to close establishments he deemed inadequate.
He had written for The Sunday Times since 1993, combining waspish TV reviews and food writing with the occasional piece of reportage from war zones and refugee camps.
Born Adrian Anthony Gill in Edinburgh in 1954 to English parents, the family moved back to the South of England when he was only a year old.
He was privately educated in Hertfordshire before moving to London to study at Central Saint Martins and the Slade School of Fine Art.
He spent the next six years trying to forge a career as an artist while claiming unemploywent ment benefit and working as a cook, a gardener and a labourer.
But by the age of 30 he was drinking so heavily – viewing himself as ‘a professional’ – he would have died if doctors had not persuaded him to stop.
His life was in chaos; his marriage to first wife Cressida Connolly, daughter of literary critic Cyril Connolly, had ended and he had given up on his artistic aspirations. He later chronicled his battle with alcoholism in his memoir Pour Me: A Life.
Despite severe dyslexia, Gill on to write his first article for society magazine Tatler in 1991, which documented his time in rehab. He moved to The Sunday Times two years later and got around his dyslexia by dictating articles over the phone.
He was pro-Labour, proEurope, in favour of the BBC, and felt the discomfort of eating a steak which cost more than a waiter’s daily wage.
Yet he lived comfortably in Fulham, South-West London, with his long-term partner, Ms Formby – nicknamed ‘The Blonde’ in his reviews – and their nine-year-old twins Isaac and Edith, dismissing his earnings as something he left to his accountant. But they were rumoured to be among the highest in Fleet Street.
He also leaves two children, Flora, 26, and Alasdair, 23, from his marriage to Mrs Rudd.
Although he spent most of his life south of the Border, Gill referred to himself as a Scot.
In a 2008 interview with The Scotsman he said his fondest childhood memories were of visiting his grandmother and Auntie Netta in Edinburgh’s New Town.
He joked he had ‘that deep, Scottish, saccharine strain of sentimentality’, adding: ‘If I hear the pipes playing the Flowers Of The Forest, I am off. I still can’t watch a football match without wanting whoever it is playing England to win. I also have the specific annoyances with Scotland that only Scottish people have, or perhaps notice.’
Sunday Times editor Martin Ivens said yesterday: ‘Adrian was stoical about his illness, but the suddenness of his death has shocked us all. He was the heart and soul of the paper.
‘His wit was incomparable, his writing dazzling and fearless, his intelligence matched by compassion. Adrian was a giant among journalists. He was also our friend. We will miss him.’
Fellow food critic Jay Rayner said: ‘So sorry to hear about the death of AA Gill. He was a controversialist, sometimes outrageously so, but a kind man and a brilliant writer.’
In his final column, published on November 20, Gill described the seriousness of his condition, yet maintained he had been fortunate: ‘Because of the nature of my life and the nature of what happened to me in my early life – my [alcohol] addiction, I know I have been very lucky.’
Gill’s final article – which chronicles his experience with cancer – is published in The Sunday Times today.
‘Courage and clarity to all he observed’