Rick Stein struggled to come to terms with his dad's suicide admitting he felt the tragedy was "embarrassing".
Rick Stein was left devastated by the death of his father when he was a teenager
The celebrity chef was just a teenager when he his father Eric took his own life back in 1965 and he ended up moving to Mexico which he admits was a way to escape his feelings of sadness and shame.
Speaking to Kate Thornton on her 'White Wine Question Time' podcast, he explained: "It’s true [I was running from grief]. I mean, you don't think that at a time. I remember The Animals song ‘We Gotta Get out of This Place’ at that time, and I was thinking, ‘I've got to get away’, but I didn't sort of realise what was driving me at the time.
"It was grief and it's quite a gloomy thing having a father that's committed suicide. It's hard to come to terms with, it's embarrassing. Also, you're missing your dad, so it was a really good time to run away, I must say."
Rick launched his first business when he turned a mobile disco in Padstow, Cornwall into a nightclub with his best friend Johnny and he was left devastated when they lost their licence after a number of fights there.
However, Rick insists the closure was actually a good thing in the long run.
He explained: "I was really devastated. I was declared a not fit and proper person to hold a drinks licence ... I remember after that notorious fight, somebody got struck with a broken glass. I said to my friend Johnny and business partner, ‘We just can't go on like this right?'
"We were just so young and not equipped to run a nightclub with a late licence, that in fact, what happened looking back, that was the best thing that could have happened to us being, closed down."
He added: "I probably said in my memoir, but about four or five years after we were closed down, the policeman that had closed us down, the Inspector, invited me over for tea.
"He said, ‘we felt really sorry for you boys because you were just so green behind the ears, but there was nothing we could do for you but make sure you were closed down’. By then I was starting to make a bit of a name for myself for cooking, and I just said, ‘Well, to be honest, it was the best thing that happened to us."
White Wine Question Time is available to listen to on all podcast platforms.
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