Si King says finishing the latest Hairy Bikers project was a ‘mark of respect’ as he spoke to Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley on This Morning, eight months after losing his ‘Hairy Biker’ best friend Dave Myers. Paying tribute to the late star, Si said: “It’s an adjustment that’s for sure. Even him complaining… He was my best mate, and still is my best mate, that never goes. But he is a miss and it’s all a bit odd.
He added: “The grieving process started quite a long time ago for me, when Dave was diagnosed – it was a big diagnosis – and it kind of started then really because it was all about the fight and that’s what we concentrated on. Grief is a very individual journey because it’s about an emotional adjustment of loss and the things that are no longer tangible, and that’s the bit that’s odd to get your head around. The amount of times I’ve thought ‘I’ve not heard from that toerag for ages…’ and then I go ‘Oh man…’ so it’s raw for anybody that loses somebody but there are two things that are certain in life – you begin it, and you end it. The bit in the middle is about what you do with it. Dave loved his life, he lived it to the full and he was joyous to be around.”
He continued: “You know, I have way less courage than Dave did because he’d do stuff that I’d say, ‘You’ve gotta be kidding’ – like Strictly Come Dancing for instance, he absolutely loved it! Could he dance? Could he Nelly! But it was just amazing to watch. It was his heart and soul performance, which is what you always got with Dave. That’s who he was!”
Of their success as a duo, Si said, “It was like winning the lottery! We were two working class lads from the North and it’s been such a privilege to see the world we live in and talk to the wonderful people that are sometimes completely diverse from the culture that we know and understand and are completely different. It was just joyous – it was always about everybody else… It was always with integrity then everything else follows. It was a lovely atmosphere to be a part of.”
Explaining his current book project The Hairy Bikers: Our Family Favourites – one which they both started together and Dave had hoped to complete together – Si said, “This one was slightly different because it’s the recipes that stuck with us – to put in context we roughly did 650,000 miles of travelling over 22 years in the saddle of a motorcycle. So, this book is about all the recipes that stuck with us because when those recipes stay with you it becomes really nostalgic and it triggered conversations and memories that we’d had, it was lovely.”
Si added: “Unfortunately, Dave passed before we finished the book, but thank you to our publishers that they had faith in us to say, ‘You must finish it’ and I really really wanted to just as a mark of respect for my best mate and also it’s about legacy. It was about looking after that legacy and treat it with the respect it deserves.”
Si stayed on to cook a favourite dish of theirs in the This Morning kitchen.