The comedy writer Simon Nye, 46, has written a raft of TV series, including Men Behaving Badly, Frank Stubbs Promotes, My Wonderful Life, and Is It Legal? He lives with his girlfriend, Claudia, and their four children in north London. Christopher, 41, ran the Maximum Diner restaurant for seven years, and turned his experiences into a book — Maximum Diner: Making It Big in Uckfield. He lives alone in Lewes, East Sussex.
SIMON: My formative memories of Chris are of a very blond child who ate incredibly slowly and methodically. He was still picking through his tinned spaghetti long after the rest of us had left the building. Chris used to have a terrible stutter that he'd get quite het up about. Our mother was an elocution teacher, so it was ironic, really. He was fine during term time, but as the school holidays progressed it got worse, which suggests it was us who made him tense.
Chris is the youngest of four and, like many a runt of the herd, he's been known to overcompensate with stubbornness. During his A-levels he left the exam room intimating that he'd scored the highest mark in the history of exam-taking. Then, when it turned out he'd failed, he shrugged the whole thing off as a career choice. This kind of resilience has been an asset, especially working in the catering industry.
We grew up in a small village in Sussex. Our mother had been an actress and our father taught drama, so although we weren't particularly literary, the possibilities were there. We were a solidly middle-class family that didn't manage to be bohemian or arty. It's a miracle we didn't all end up working for Sun Alliance.
When we were growing up, the age gap between Chris and I seemed huge. We went to the same school, but when he was starting I was finishing. We only became close after our dad died. Chris was 18, and I did feel slightly cast in a paternal role. He spent the next 10 years working abroad and travelling. By the time he opened the diner in Uckfield, I was having some success as a writer, so I was happy to loan him money. He was evangelical about the concept of a stylish fast-food place where people could eat cheaply and the food needn't be crap. I've nodded off listening to why the burger is the perfect food. Unfortunately for Chris, the textbooks are great at telling you how to locate your operation in an appropriate socioeconomic matrix, but less good on how to handle drunks who nick your stuff at closing time, or what to do when you're delivering a pizza and you run over the customer's cat.
It wasn't a huge amount of money I invested, and it wasn't me who had to work incredibly hard to make the whole thing work. The problem was that it never did quite break even. It was very stylish — he had the red banquettes, the jukebox and great food — but he was beset by problems. I remember there being lots of angst about ventilation and the yob element among the customers. I don't think he had a holiday for seven years. He's quite a principled chap: he was clear about not hitting on his young staff — then he realised they were all having sex with each other. I think he regretted that. His relationships have always seemed rather complicated. He seems to go for women with problems. Either that or Uckfield is a very troubled town.
It was hard to judge how much involvement Chris wanted from me. I was in LA a lot, working on the American series of Men Behaving Badly. But our mother is like the bush telegraph — she'd always let us all know how hard Chris was working and the unbelievable things that were happening to him. In fact, I cut my writing teeth, and I suspect Chris did too, writing letters home.
At one point he decided pizza delivery was the way to go, so he set up Cousin Luigi's. He made the pizzas, he boxed them, he rode the moped and delivered them. That was when he ran over someone's cat in the driveway. It was a case of: "The good news is, your pizza's here. The bad news is, the cat's dead." I couldn't write a line like that. He'd launch a two-for-one special and the wily folk of Uckfield would find a way to exploit it. The biggest yob in town once got hold of a pile of vouchers offering a burger and a drink for £1, then stood outside the diner selling them for £1.50. Chris was stoical, claiming he'd sold quite a few burgers that day with the help of a middleman.
I've always been a bit secretive about my work. I know there are families who show each other drafts and rewrites, but that's always struck me as foolish. Confidence is such a delicate thing when you're writing, and the last thing you want is to be judged by those closest to you.
When Chris told me he'd turned his diner experiences into a book, I assumed it would never be published, just because nobody gets their first book published. But then his book is probably a lot better than my first novel was. I like the fact that he didn't question me about what software I use and how wide my margins are, because in the end it's always better to find your own way. If you go to someone for help and then you succeed, maybe you haven't done the full journey.
CHRISTOPHER: However old I am, I always feel inescapably the youngest. You have this feeling that you'll always be looked after — which is a mistake, on the whole. Even as children, Simon and Louise were more focused and sensible, while Jeremy and me were the giggly ones at the end of the table. We lived in the most incredibly boring village where you either did nothing or you made your own entertainment. Simon was always doing something clever. He bought a ruined TR2 with a view to getting it going again; he painted his floor stripy; he spent Christmas in a tent in Morocco on his own. In comparison with Jeremy and me, who were so impractical and lazy we could barely be bothered to go to the toilet, his projects seemed very grand.
The first we knew of Simon's writing talent was when he won a Barclays Bank essay-writing competition. He entered again the following year, putting his girlfriend's name on the entry form, and won a second time. He shared his first flat in Camden with three girls — which I think must have been the inspiration for Men Behaving Badly. I went up for a few parties and it was a bit like one of those lifestyle adverts. You know, the funky Londoners partying and having fun.
His first book did nothing and his second didn't make much of a mark, but it was read by Beryl Virtue, the veteran TV producer, who thought it could be turned into a sitcom. Her daughter happened to be going out with Harry Enfield, who appeared in the first series of Men Behaving Badly. Simon was very quiet about it, but I was conscious that he was becoming hugely successful. When he started looking at houses in Hampstead, I realised he was earning serious amounts of money. Of course I instantly asked him if I could borrow some of it, and he generously agreed to lend me £15,000 to start a business.
I'd already been fired from a series of catering-management jobs and I'd nose-dived to a position as a room-service waiter at the Metropole hotel in Brighton. It was a career in terrible decline, but Simon still lent me the money. Over eight years my business lurched from crisis to crisis: cash-flow and staffing problems, BSE, McDonald's... Every time the Vat was due, I had the awful embarrassment of asking Simon if he could lend me a bit more. He was so calm and nice about it. Any sensible businessman would have closed earlier, but I always felt I was almost there. Let's just say there is still a certain amount of money outstanding.
I'm about as anti-rich-people as you can be, but I have the greatest respect for Simon. He's earned his money by working incredibly hard. I'd love to say that Men Behaving Badly is based on his life, and his office is full of beer and pizza boxes, but nothing could be further from the truth. He doesn't even go to parties much. If he's trying to get a script in, he really does work all night while the rest of us would say, "Ah, sod it," and go to bed.
I have asked Simon for advice, but I don't think he knows how to give it. A couple of years ago he gave me a writing course and I got his cast-off computers. But it was Jeremy who pointed out that the three bestselling books tend to be diaries, cookery books and management guides. I put them all together and came up with Maximum Diner. But I have to concede that I would never have done any of this if it weren't for Simon. Once you've got a professional writer in the family, anything seems possible. I'm just very grateful that he's not a plumber.
The Times
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