BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

BBC Radio 4

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Top of the Class

Factual: Life Stories

John Wilson meets leading figures and takes them back to the places they left behind

John Wilson meets leading figures in their fields and takes them back to the places and people they left behind

Top of the Class: Series 1

Top of the Class: Series 1: Episode 4: Gary Rhodes

Gary Rhodes

Episode 4

Episode 4: Gary Rhodes

Series 1

BBC Radio 4 - Top of the Class, Series 1, Gary Rhodes

Gary Rhodes is reunited with his best friend and his lecturer from catering college.

John Wilson takes leading figures back to revisit their early influences. Gary Rhodes is reunited with his best friend from catering college and the lecturer who taught him.

Gary Rhodes was making Sunday lunch for his mum when he was 14. The 1970s was not an era for a football loving boy to tell his schoolfriends that his dream was to be a top chef, so he applied secretly to Thanet Catering college. 

Overjoyed to be accepted, he panicked on the first day when he couldn't answer the question "what is a sauce bechamel?" He thought he would never make it in the world of cookery, but he ended up being the college's top student, became a successful restauranteur and a TV Chef who now has restaurants around the globe and is a prolific cookery writer. 

Much of his success he feels was down to the excellence of the training he got from Thanet Catering College and in particular, his mentor Mr. Barrett. John Wilson reunites Gary with Mr. Barrett and his great friend and rival from college days, Martin Nash, who followed his own catering career.

Producer - Sarah Taylor.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

John Wilson takes leading figures back to the roots which influenced their later success

John Wilson meets leading figures in their fields and takes them back to the places and people they left behind but who influenced their later success

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Top of the Class

Series 1

Episode 4: Gary Rhodes

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