James Martin, who hosts James Martin’s Saturday Morning this weekend (December 14), opened up about a hidden health condition earlier this month.
Away from the kitchen and the TV cameras, the TV chef, who has enjoyed a career in television for nearly 20 years, also spends a lot of time in his garden in his Hampshire home.
While he was born in the North Riding of Yorkshire, James has lived in Hampshire for around 20 years. And it’s his sprawling Hampshire garden that brings relaxation – even if that relaxation does happen to come around midnight…
James Martin opens up about his OCD
With a busy schedule in the world of television, James told The Telegraph that mowing his own lawn is a good distraction.
“I’ve got a John Deere sit-down lawn-mower with headlights and people take the mick out of me because I might mow the lawn four times a week. If we’ve had non-stop rain and I can’t cut the grass, I get [bleep]ed off,” he said.
The thing is a garden keeps you busy, which is great if you have OCD.
“But I also think mowing helps me switch off. I can have a crazy day at work, but I’ll come home and happily get on my mower at midnight,” James continued, before opening up about his OCD.
“The thing is a garden keeps you busy, which is great if you have OCD – as most chefs probably do.”
‘I failed all my exams at school’
Despite carving out a really successful cooking career, James admitted on the Spooning podcast with Mark Wogan earlier this year that he “left school with no qualifications”.
“I hated it. I failed all my exams at school. I didn’t enjoy it. I loved the cooking side of it but I couldn’t do it academically. Because you had to pass things, these full exams. And I would never pass an exam in my life,” he said.
James continued: “I’m not proud of it but I used to hate Wednesdays. Wednesday [was a] spelling test.”
Read more: Saturday Morning host James Martin in saucy confession about trip to sex shop
James Martin’s Saturday Morning is on Saturdays at 9.30am on ITV1.
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