Rick Stein explains how his Oxfordshire accent came about

Speaking to The Times, the celebrity chef traced his manner of speaking back to his childhood on a farm near Chipping Norton.

“I think during a phase of my early teenage life I identified myself with the people that worked on our farm just outside Chipping Norton and I just didn’t want to be associated with posh people with posh accents,” he told the newspaper.

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“So I took on a bit of an Oxfordshire accent.”

The revelation came as Mr Stein reflected on his life as a celebrity chef, restaurateur, writer and television presenter.

The 77-year-old said he’s “not going to last much longer” after undergoing open-heart surgery in June 2022.

He studied English at Oxford University in the last 70s and left with a third (Image: Photo: Oxford Mail)

In the interview, he also spoke of his time at Oxford University, where he studied English in the early 70s.

He started as a student after several years of travelling in Australia, New Zealand and Mexico, but said his travels did not stand him apart as a “confident dude”.

He said: “If you leave school and go straight to university, there’s no gap. You carry on in that academic state of mind.

“I’d been hitchhiking around the world, working in an abattoir in Australia, working my passage across the Pacific.

“So I was slightly different.

“But the idea that you become this confident dude who’s done all this stuff is ridiculous, because they’re all into the whole academic thing.”

He also spoke of a car accident on the A34 as an undergraduate which prompted a nervous breakdown.

After a boozy night, he crashed into roadworks on the A34 while speeding in the direction of north Oxford.

An oil lamp smashed through the windscreen and into his then-girlfriend Jill Newstead’s head, leaving her with serious injuries.

Mr Stein was even told she might die while he was sitting in a police cell after the horror crash.

But she recovered and married him in 1975.

That same year, the couple started the Seafood Restaurant, a harbour-side bistro in Padstow, Cornwall.

Their business has since grown into four restaurants, a bistro, a cafe, a seafood delicatessen, a pâtisserie shop, a gift shop and a cookery school.

Mr Stein also writes cookery books and has presented several cookery shows for the BBC.

He divorced Ms Newstead in 2007 and is now married to Sarah Burns, who he met in Australia in 1997.

In The Times interview, he said he is trying to make the most of what time he has left.