First book I loved

The Tree That Sat Down by Beverley Nichols, a book about a shop in a tree. When I was growing up, my mother read to me a lot. I was a late reader and remember my mother despairing at my inability to pick it up at an early age. I was about five when I read my first book. Nowadays, I listen to audiobooks almost as much as I read.

First concert I went to

The Beatles at the Astoria Theatre in Finsbury Park, north London, in 1963. You couldn’t hear anything because of the screaming and the amps didn’t have much punch. They sang Twist and Shout and Roll Over Beethoven, or at least that’s what I could hear. I saw Bob Dylan in 1965 and half the audience walked out because he had a rock’n’roll band behind him. People were very disappointed but I quite liked the band’s guitarist, Robbie Robertson.

First TV show I loved

In the Fifties my parents wouldn’t let us have a TV. I was born and brought up on a farm in Oxfordshire and would visit the couple who managed the farm to watch The Lone Ranger. It was the Western for me.

Clayton Moore as the Lone Ranger riding Silver, his white horse, on its hind legs.

Clayton Moore in the US TV series The Lone Ranger

SILVER SCREEN COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES

First thing that made me want to be a chef

About three years after I started my restaurant in Padstow, Cornwall. I started by running a nightclub there and it got closed down because we couldn’t keep order. So I opened a restaurant as a way of paying the bills instead. I didn’t really want to cook, but my mother had taught me. It came out of necessity and then I started to enjoy it.

First film I saw at the cinema

As a child I would bicycle to the Regent Cinema near Chipping Norton once a week. I remember watching High Noon starring Grace Kelly, who I thought was the most beautiful person in the world.

Grace Kelly in a still from the film High Noon, wearing a lace-trimmed gown and resting her chin on her hand.

Grace Kelly in High Noon (1952)

ALAMY

First album I bought

I was lucky enough to be part of the rock’n’roll generation. My contemporaries at [Wells House] boarding school had record players in their studies. 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong: Elvis’ Gold Records, Volume 2 was the first one I bought. It was the cover with Elvis in the golden suit, surrounded by lots and lots of Elvises. I loved the first track, I Need Your Love Tonight. At school, as an Elvis fan, I would have a lot of arguments with Cliff Richard fans. He didn’t quite hit the spot for me.

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First pop-inspired fashion trends I adopted

I had Beatles boots and, of course, the Beatles haircut. I wanted to look exactly like them from their second album. Various masters at school told me off for having that look. But there was so much rebellion around that it felt inevitable that we would rebel against rules that insisted everyone’s clothing had to be the same.

First TV chef I admired

In the Sixties I was in Australia for a couple of years and one of my jobs was working for the cookery show The Galloping Gourmet, hosted by Graham Kerr. He used to drink wine on set and would drive right into the studio in his Volkswagen Karmann Ghia with his glamorous wife. He made people realise that food could be fun and sexy.

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First time I cried at the cinema

I don’t really tend to cry over films, but I do remember watching and crying over Bambi. I couldn’t take it. It was just too sad.

First time I felt overwhelmed by fame

When my first TV series came out, Rick Stein’s Taste of the Sea on BBC2, it was instantly successful. I was cooking all the time and left the kitchen one day to empty a dustbin into a wheelie bin and someone stopped me to ask for a photograph. I just thought why me? I’m emptying a dustbin. Then I realised why. That show also had a huge effect on business and it was difficult to get used to it. Some people got annoyed at the slowness of our service because we just weren’t prepared for it.

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First moment I realised I’d made it

I went to India a few years ago where I’d filmed about 15 years earlier. We went to Taj Lake Palace in Udaipur. I didn’t realise I was well known in India, but when we had afternoon tea they produced a cake with my face on it. That was a special moment.

Rick Stein’s Christmas: Recipes, Memories & Stories for the Festive Season (BBC Books £28 pp320) is out now. To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk. Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members

What are your formative cultural experiences? Let us know in the comments below