95. Celebrity chef Jon Watts on shame, prison and rehabilitation

TW: knife crime, swearing.  Jon Watts is a celebrated chef whose astonishing journey has taken him from a Young Offender Institute to working alongside Jamie Oliver and becoming a celebrity chef in his own right with two hit cookbooks.  At 16, Jon left school with no qualifications.  Out of work, he fell into a gang and petty crime, repeatedly being arrested. At 18, his life took much a darker turn when he was jailed for causing grievous bodily harm – for stabbing another gang member.  Sentenced to six and a half years, a switch flipped for Jon and he began the hard work to turn his life around. That included confronting the brutal truth of his crime.  In this revealing, shocking and at times emotional episode Jon opens us as never before, not to excuse his criminal past but instead as an attempt to explain it. And in doing so he hopes to prevent other young people from making the same mistakes as he did.  One of our most important podcasts to date that offers a new perspective on the seemingly unsolvable problem of knife crime.  My thanks to Jon for trusting us with his story.    BooksSpeedy Weeknight Meals (Hardback), published 29/08/2024.Watts Cooking: Deliciously simple recipes to inspire home cooks, published 02/10/2023.  Links    Jon’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonwatts88/?hl=en  Jon’s website: https://chefjonwatts.com/about/Stream/buy ‘Allies’ by Some Velvet Morning: https://ampl.ink/qp6bm    Some Velvet Morning Website: www.somevelvetmorning.co.uk      Your Daily Practice: Sleep by Myndstream: https://open.spotify.com/track/5OX9XgJufFz9g63o2Dv2i5?si=b2f9397c92084682Host – Andy Coulson   CWC team: Jane Sankey, Louise Difford, Mabel Pickering   With special thanks to Ioana Barbu and the brilliant people at Global      For all PR and guest approaches please contact – podcast@coulsonpartners.com