Phil Vickery

Our first meeting was not propitious and would, most likely, have been our last had we not found ourselves in a state of mutual despair. I found him pushy, defensive and rather too eager to demand a swift decision. He left the interview convinced that I had just graduated from a school for neo-Nazi Gauleiters. My problem was that I had a kitchen in turmoil and a reputation to defend. Gary Rhodes had left me rather too abruptly for comfort, snatched by a predator who carried him off to London and a new career which was to set him on his road to stardom. Like my kitchen, Phil Vickery’s life had also hit a patch of turbulence. His employer’s handsome Regency pile near Taunton had just welcomed the receiver, and now he was left wondering how he was going to service the hefty mortgage on his pretty Victorian terrace in Wellington.