Ewbank Tim - Jamie Oliver

T he Cricketers, an inviting hostelry in the picturesque village of Clavering, in the heart of rural Essex, is everything an English pub should be. The elegant timber-framed building dates right back to the sixteenth century and inside the atmosphere is warm and welcoming and generally full of highly satisfied customers. This fine freehouse sells a range of good British beers. There is a remarkable wine cellar and the kitchens serve high-quality meals every day of the year. Not surprisingly, licensees Trevor and Sally Oliver are delighted by the recommendations their hospitality and food have produced from the English Tourist Board, Egon Ronay, Michelin, the AA and just about everyone who has ever been fortunate enough to have eaten there. But they also have another production who is doing them rather proud as well, their fast-talking son Jamie.

Today he is internationally famous as the Naked Chef, the television phenomenon who has turned on millions of viewers from Sidcup to Sydney with his delicious high-speed food and high-energy friends in the most refreshing cookery series in decades. But some diners with long memories recall the day when a globally unknown ten-year-old Jamie managed to empty The Cricketers of staff and customers in about five seconds flat.

Bored in the long school summer holidays, he thought it would be a fun idea to let off some stink bombs in the bar. He decided it was sure to amuse his friends from the village who cheerfully sniggered in the background and egged Jamie on. He did not stop for long to consider the consequences, because Jamie Oliver has always been game for a laugh. Never one to shrink from a challenge, the mischievous youngster could not resist completing the dirty deed. Then he and his young pals scarpered as quickly as they could run.

To say that hard-working landlord Trevor Oliver did not see the joke is something of an understatement. Reliable observers of the scene recall that steam was distinctly visible coming from both ears at high speed. Trevor was absolutely furious because the smell was so awful that his customers couldnt have left any quicker if the place had been on fire. From the moment the first nose twitched over the roast beef to the last diner rushing into the car park took only two or three minutes. It was that bad. Jamie and his pals were watching the scene from behind a fence almost helpless with laughter.

The village chums thought it was the funniest stunt in ages and rushed home to tell their brothers and sisters. Jamie was left with his hilarity swiftly turning to horror as he saw people spluttering and getting into their cars and driving off. Jamie had tears running down his face as he watched the results of his prank unfold before his very eyes. But gradually, even at that early age, the full consequences of his actions were not beyond him. He knew that emptying the pub in record time was bad news for business.

Jamie remembers the result very clearly. He says, Thirty people left without paying and my old man gave me the hiding of my life. If there is one thing in my life I should apologise for its that. It was absolutely unforgivable.

Trevor was furious that his son should be so ridiculously reckless with the family business. He had no hesitation in handing out a suitable punishment to his high-spirited son. But he found it hard to do it without looking Jamie in the eye because he knew that then he would probably burst out laughing.

Trevor Oliver is in possession of precisely the same sort of irrepressible sense of humour as his son. And had the stink bomb attack been mounted on some other establishment, he would most certainly have seen and shared in the joke. But in his own pub, during a busy lunchtime, he could not believe that Jamie could have been so stupid. And it took him some time even to begin to appreciate the funny side.

But it was also extremely untypical. Certainly he might always have been the boy with the wickedly unrestrained sense of humour. But Jamie Oliver is remembered by everyone who knew him growing up as a lad in Clavering as a sunny, good-natured youngster who was full of fun and highly unlikely to commit malicious acts of commercial disaster to his hard-working father.

It was a fabulous place to grow up, says Jamie, not caring in the slightest how corny this might sound. And I had a wonderful childhood with a wonderful family.

Villagers were a shade resentful at first of the newcomers who came to take over their local, with little regard for the joys of a late-night lock-in until the early hours. Trevor Oliver was determined to do much more than smile at the few aged regulars who loved to languish over their pints. But he cleaned the old place up from top to bottom and smartened up its appearance, as well as making a whole host of structural improvements.

Yet Trevor and Sally were always very well aware of the impact of all their alterations. They knew they needed to attract new customers who would come to enjoy the growing menu but they still had plenty of time for the locals who regarded The Cricketers as part of the social scene. To this day, they make sure that customers are just as welcome to come and enjoy a leisurely pint or two as those who order a full meal.

The Cricketers remains an integral part of Clavering. It is a quiet, rambling village, happy to be by-passed by busy nearby through-roads like the M11. It is still a place where everyone knows his neighbour and naturally watches out for them. Cars and houses are still often left unlocked. It was certainly an idyllic place to grow up. Even as a child, Jamie was a relentlessly social animal and he was always at the centre of a lively gang of rascals. His earliest memories are of the days when he and his gang used to wander freely around the beautiful countryside. Their time was mainly much more usefully employed scrumping apples or making dens and playing cowboys and indians in the woods. Local farmers knew the lads and turned a blind eye to their activities around the area. Geographically, the village of Clavering might be in Essex but its peaceful unspoilt acres seem a world away from the more familiar image of the urban Essex of Billericay or Basildon.

They were never any trouble, those lads, said a village elder who asked to be identified simply as Dan. Young Jamie was a very nice lad. When my wife was ill and I was out at work, he knocked on the door one day and asked if she needed anything from the shops. No one told him to do it. He was only 11 or 12 but he knew she was stuck inside all day and he wanted to help. He fetched her some groceries and she reckoned she spent the rest of the day talking to him. My wife was a very good cook and they used to spend hours talking about recipes and meals. She knew some very old country recipes that came down from her mother. Theyre not in any cookery books, they were just in her head and Jamie was fascinated by that. He always wanted to know how well a certain meal had gone down at a big occasion and she loved telling him. We never knew another boy who was interested.

My wife came from a big farming family in Norfolk and she used to tell Jamie about the great meals they prepared for big occasions like Christmas and when the shoot was on their land. He loved hearing her talk about having to pluck 20 pheasants at the crack of dawn so she could get everything ready for all the guns and the bush-beaters at night. He was dead inquisitive, was young Jamie, and when I got home she reckoned she was worn out with answering his questions. But he used to come quite a lot after that and he was always full of life and laughter.

Jamies parents originally come from Southend where he was born on 27 May 1975, which was also his fathers twenty-first birthday. He mischievously told one interviewer that he was actually conceived on the end of Southend Pier.