According to Daily Express - Showbiz, James Martin described a family holiday to the River Thames when he was 12 years old, where his grandmother bought him a toy Ferrari. He still has that toy Ferrari in his garage, highlighting its lasting significance. At age 27, he played a Bryan Adams track in his sports car on the same road, Hole of Horcum, he dreamed of driving as a child, though the specific track and the exact date he shared this story on Greatest Hits Radio remain unknown.
James Martin is 53 years old and has a career that includes his own Saturday morning cookery programme, with credits such as Saturday Kitchen, This Morning, and The One Show. In 2025, farming siblings Robert and David Nicholson, known for Springtime on the Farm and The Yorkshire Vet, appeared on his cookery show. According to Daily Express - Showbiz, Robert Nicholson described that Martin has a rule that once he starts cooking on his show, he does not want to be interrupted, though the specific details of this rule beyond that are unclear.
It's a big hole and the steam train comes through it from Pickering. It's quite a famous place and it's a beautiful road. And when I was about 12 years old we went on holiday to the River Thames, because that's as far as we got on holiday. We stopped at this toy shop and my grandmother bought me this little toy Ferrari. And I've got that Ferrari in my garage and that track was the first thing I wanted to play on that bit of road in that car when I was 27 years old. And it was played in 1984 and it was played in an old stereo in that little Fiat one day dreaming that I would be driving that road. Never thought it would happen.
How the Daily Mirror report differed from the Daily Express report on this story is also not confirmed.
But basically, once he started cooking, right, he didn't want interrupting. It was going to flow from there, and we were going to make it work. He didn't want to have to stop, start or put the cream back in. You know, once you're cooking, you are cooking and what we said, hopefully, was gonna be alright.