This week, with PAUL HEATHCOTE, Longridge restaurateur

MEMORY: I can't think of anything before my fifth birthday. I remember blowing the candles out on my birthday cake when we lived in a cobbled street in Farnworth, Bolton.

HOLIDAY: The first holiday abroad was with my parents when I was seven on a package holiday to the Isle of Elba. We were the only family in the whole of our street to have been abroad. I can remember an enormous amount -- playing football on the beach with the waiters and a big ship docking with melons which were cut up for the people on the beach. And spaghetti bolognese -- none of us had seen it before.

JOB: I worked part-time when I was about 14, making garden sheds.

CAR: A Vauxhall Viva. I smashed it up after three months -- but I've not had a bump since.

PET: We had a boxer dog called Cassius, named after Cassius Clay, who was the world champion at the time.

HOME: An old mill house in Eagley Bank in Bolton. I bought it as an investment and hardly lived in it as I was working away from home for most of the time. At one time I had two American basketball players living in it and they wrecked the place.

HERO: James Bond. I had one of the little Bond cars, gold-coloured.

ALCOHOLIC DRINK: Definitely cider. Since then I've never been a great cider drinker.

RECORD: Yellow River by Christie.

LOVE: I suppose it was my MG Midget soft top. It got vandalised the first week I had it after I had been out to a club with my girlfriend. I had saved every penny and found the roof slashed and the bodywork scratched on every panel.

MEAL COOKED TO IMPRESS: Probably the most difficult meal I cooked to impress was when I was asked to go down to Sussex for a group of 10 chefs from France. The heartbreaking thing was that their plane was delayed and they were all so tired I don't think they were bothered about dinner.