BY AILEEN MURPHY

Love him or loathe him it's hard to avoid celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay who seems to be on the screen nearly every time we turn on the television.

Now while the loud, arrogant, foul-mouthed Ramsay may not be to everyone's liking there is something strangely addictive about the canny Scotsman, and his autobiography 'Humble Pie' shows there is a lot more to him than meets the eye.

This is a tale which will shock readers. It is written with the same passion which he puts into his cooking and television shows, except this time he's talking about himself and his family, as a result he has produced a real page turner.

His first chapter starts with his childhood and he recalls the first thing he can remember 'The Barra' in Glasgow, which he explains 'It's a market, the roughest, most extraordinary place, people bustling, full of second-hand s***. Of course," he continues, "we were used to second-hand s***. In that sense, I had a Barras kind of childhood."

Ramsay talks of a childhood where the family were dominated by his father a 'hard-drinking, womaniser' who took his ill-temper out on his wife and family. The Ramsay family were constantly poor, constantly on the move and constantly in fear of their patriarch.

In an attempt to impress a young Gordon clung on to the only thing he was really good at 'football'. He admits 'football was the only way I thought I could impress Dad. Nothing else worked.'

However, his career was dogged with on-the-pitch injuries, first to his spleen, and then to his knee. At sixteen he got his first big break when a Rangers scout spotted him, it was make or break time.

He did secure a place with the Scottish club, but then disaster struck in a bizarre training accident he smashed the cartilage in his knee, 'and stupidly decided to play on'. As he battled to get a place on the first team the news got worse when they decided not to sign him. He explains: "I wanted it all, or I wanted nothing. No matter how much promise I had shown, I was always going to be labelled as the player with the gammy knee. I had to let go of the game that I loved."

"I needed a new challenge. The only question was what would it be?" And so he turned to cooking, a move which certainly didn't impress his father, who he explains: "He always thought that any man who cooked had to be gay."

From this moment Ramsay started on the difficult steps which would take see him earn a number of Michelin stars and gain the celebrity status he enjoys today. His dedication to his career in the early days when he did the dirtiest jobs in the kitchen is unquestionable. As was his determination to succeed. Ramsay recalls how for one month: "I did the early shift at Bragnza from 7a.m. until 4 p.m., and then I got the tube to Victoria, and the train from there to Wandsworth Common, where I'd work at Harvey's until about two o'clock the following morning."

The chapters concentrating on how he learned the craft do make interesting reading, and allow an insight into what fuels the fire in his belly.

However, it is the details of his personal life which are perhaps the most eye-opening. In particular his dealings with his brother Ronnie, a heroin addict, who has been in and out of rehab a number of times.
"Seeing your little brother like that, at rock bottom, injecting the soles of his feet or his neck because he can't find a vein anywhere, or looking at his arms, which look as though someone has cut a few golf balls in half and stuck them under the skin. It's horrifying."

Coupled with the shame and the pain, of seeing his brother like this, came guilt. Guilt that he had made such a success of his life while his brother wallowed in the depths of despair.

As a result the chef finds himself paying for Ronnie to get treatment time and time again. He recalls going once going to a dealer with Ronnie where he says "You have to be polite, like they're someone you really want to impress."

Turning to another example Ramsay goes on: "The irony of it was that when Dad died, the only way I'd been able to get him (Ronnie) to the funeral, to carry Dad's coffin into that church, had been to watch him take a hit of heroin. He buried my father when he was high as a kite."

This is perhaps one on the most honest parts of Ramsay's book as he writes with a mixture of love and disgust for his brother who has resorted to selling his stories to the tabloids and trying to blackmail his family for money for drugs.

Many readers will be keen to see how Ramsay went from the slums to Glasgow to the television screens, and his career path is well documented in 'Humble Pie'. So to is the development of his various television shows and the incredible amounts of money the networks are prepared to pay him, and yet he is still an man who refuses to let his children eat in the majority of his restaurants, and makes them go on holiday to Butlins to make sure their feet remain firmly on the ground.

He also reveals the characters he loves from 'Kitchen Nightmare's' and the celebrities he can't stand who appeared in 'Hell's Kitchen'.

'Humble Pie' is an insight into one of televisions most outspoken character. It is a story which took immense courage to tell and is done so in an honest, no-holes barred way.

Writing this autobiography Ramsay himself was under no illusions, as he writes: "I don't think people grasp the whole me when they see me on television or in the pages of some glossy magazine. I've got the wonderful family, the big house, the flash car in the drive, I run several of the world's best restaurants. I'm running round, cursing and swearing, telling people what to do, my mouth is always getting me into trouble.

"They probably think: that flash b**tard. I know I would. But it's not about being flash. My life, like most people's is about keeping the wolf from the door. It's about hard work. It's about success. Beyond that, though, something else is at play. Is it fear? Maybe." he continues. "I'm still as driven as any man you'll ever met. I can't ever sit still. Holidays are impossible. I've got ants in my pants - I always have."

And he admits: "Work is who I am, who I want to be. I sometimes think that if I were to stop, I'd cease to exist."

'Humble Pie' is published by Harper and is available at local bookshops now.