Chris Evans - Memoirs of a Fruitcake

So here’s what I decided to do:

I would simply instruct an estate agent to take me to look at the five best houses currently for sale in the south-east of England, regardless of cost. After seeing all five, I would then undertake to buy the one that I liked the most, even if I didn’t really like it that much at all. This way I was forcing myself into a ‘yes’ situation.

I know this philosophy is a little extreme, especially for a boy who started life on a council estate with little more than his pocket money, his push bike and a paper round, but this is where I now found myself and I was determined to make the most of it.

There was more drastic action to come.

Because these houses were likely to be tens of miles apart, maybe even hundreds, it was going to be quite difficult to compare and contrast them. I therefore informed the agent to arrange all five viewings consecutively on one single day and to meet me that morning at Battersea heliport. I also kindly requested he seek permission from the vendors concerned for us to land in their gardens. We were about to have the viewing trip of a lifetime.

When we climbed up above Richmond Park on the Wednesday morning in question the rest of the world was at work. I don’t know who had to try the hardest to play it cool, the agent or myself. We were both grinning from ear to ear.

Extravagant as this strategy may seem, there was more than a grain of sanity in what we were doing. After all, we were dealing with houses worth several million pounds each, and if it took a one-day lease of a Twin Squirrel to secure the right one, then it would be money well spent. The fact that it was a tonne of fun in the process was merely a bonus, albeit a pretty big one. Plus it meant I could also get to spy into the gardens of any potential new neighbours whilst we were at it.

The first property we looked at was in Windsor, right on the River Thames. It was huge, Georgian, white and stunning. After a quick scoot round, enough to gain a mental picture, we were back on board and up and away again. Next stop Chichester, to look at a renovated castle. This was also very nice. Protected by its own moat, with fabulous lawns, the present owners had spent a small fortune renovating their home by blending ultra-modern with genuinely ancient. As a result there was lots of new glass, mixed in with old stone – a real wow house, but just a bit too far away from London to make it practical.

Two landings completed, two houses down and Windsor was still winning. Time then for number three. The pilot tracked back over the South Downs, overflying Goodwood and Midhurst, before landing on the lawn of a fabulous house just off the A3, complete with its own lake, working water-mill and state-of-the-art recording studio.

‘Who lives in a house like this?’ I could hear the voice in my head say.

‘Roger Taylor from Queen’s place,’ whispered the agent, as if he’d heard me.

The story goes that when Queen had their first hit album, Roger went straight out and bought this house. It didn’t occur to him that they might not have another one; Roger told me this story himself. He also told me about the first time Freddie Mercury came over to visit. He said that Freddie couldn’t believe how audacious the band’s drummer had been with his recent purchase, so much so that he immediately felt compelled to return to London to buy a brand-new white Rolls-Royce from Jack Barclays. Having achieved this in no more than a couple of hours, Freddie was back at Roger’s in his new wheels in time for tea.

Roger couldn’t have been more welcoming that day and his house was to die for; so fabulous, in fact, that he ended up withdrawing it from the market and staying there himself, though not before adding a new library wing – all 7,000 square feet of it.

Time then for house number four.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Hascombe Court, a turn-of-the-century manor house set in forty-seven acres of Gertrude Jekyll gardens, situated a few miles south of Guildford. This house was heaven on earth, sitting atop a hill overlooking the quaint little village from which it took its name.

No more than fifteen minutes after we landed there I made a call to my long-suffering accountant.

‘Kirit, I would like to buy a house.’

‘OK, that’s fine, where is it and how much?’

‘It’s near Guildford and it’s £4 million, which is a bargain because it was £5.5 million.’ This was true; it had been on the market for over a year. I couldn’t believe no one had snapped it up.

‘Chris, you don’t have £4 million.’ ‘I know that, but can we get it?’

Poor Kirit – who actually isn’t poor at all but you know what I mean – he’s had to cope with several telephone calls like this over the years, the most recent being when I bought a car I couldn’t afford at an auction in Italy in 2007. That phone call followed exactly the same lines and both times I’m happy to say he came up with the funds required to indulge my desires.

I never ask how he does it – I think it’s probably best I don’t know – but following such episodes I try not to call him again about anything for as long as I possibly can.

On this occasion I would have to call Kirit back sooner rather than later as it transpired that Hascombe Court and its forty-seven acres turned out to be only the half of it – literally.

After the phone call I discovered that over the road was the second half of the estate which was made up of a farm, three cottages and another hundred and twenty-seven acres which was also up for sale.

‘Kirit, I need a further £1.5 million, there’s more of the estate to be bought.’

‘I see,’ he sighed.

I was so sure about Hascombe Court that I didn’t even bother going to look at house number five, asking the pilot to return us safely and swiftly to London.

Within four weeks I had completed the purchase of both lots for a total purchase price just shy of £6 million. I suddenly had an idea how Roger may have felt all those years before, wondering where his band’s next hit might come from, but you know what? I really didn’t care. Besides, I could always sell it again if I had to, which was a bloody good job because that’s precisely what was destined to happen.

They say one of the best ways to go about making a small fortune is to start with a big one and lose most of it. That is exactly what the stars had lined up for me but I was yet to do the losing bit. So, let’s find out how that happened first, shall we?

10The Italian when I was 20 where a date asked for Parmesan cheese to go with her pasta. I thought it was a greedy request for an additional course

9My first Chinese. I got cramp from trying to eat with chopsticks

8My first Indian, where a ‘mate’ told me to go for the phal. The phal was still going for me the next morning

7The French restaurant where I had my first meal with Michael Grade (former head of Channel 4). I ordered steak tartare and had no idea it was just raw meat

6Lunch in the Palm Grill in Los Angeles with Bernie Brillstein and Brad Gray when I was 29, just after they offered me $11 million to work on TV in the States

5Lunch in Langan’s with Ronnie and Peter O’Toole

4Dinner with Billie in the Four Seasons the night before we were married in Las Vegas

3The wedding lunch at Alambique in the Algarve, which is run by my best man Paulo, and where my wife Natasha and I started our new life together

2Lunch in Little Italy with Jade and her mum after finally getting my shit together to do something about my relationship with my daughter