Simon 'Si' King has opened up about presenting on TV without his beloved Hairy Bikers co-star David 'Dave' Myers.
In a heartbreaking statement from 2024, King announced that Myers had died from cancer at the age of 66.
Calling him his 'best friend', King said at the time that he would 'miss him every day and the bond and friendship we shared over half a lifetime'.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs ahead of the launch of his first solo show, Channel 4’s Top of the Stops, King admitted that he felt 'a sense of guilt' returning to his job, calling it an 'odd experience'.
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“The first year, I didn’t want to do anything at all, I just didn’t have it in me and then when I was shooting the show, I felt a sense of guilt that I was doing something that when he wasn’t there,” he explained.
“It was a very odd experience, because I was having to remember and deliver pieces to camera that I’d go ‘ah you can do this’.
“What was wonderful was that I had my lovely, lovely, gorgeous, talented crew, and the creative shorthand just came back like that.
“It was wonderful, it was just odd that he wasn’t there.”
King, however, suggested that he won't miss the demanding nature of filming 200 days a year.
“It just changes you,” he admitted. “I’d seen so much I didn’t know what to say anymore.
“I didn’t know what to say to anybody.
“Because I’m not there, I don’t know the day-to-day of everybody’s lives, and what the crack is.”
He explained that he became 'very inconsistent emotionally because you don’t know where to put it'.
King is a father to three sons from his previous marriage to ex-wife Jane.
“And that’s very difficult for Jane particularly, the mother of my children, and it’s the most destructive thing because nobody ever knows where they are, and there’s no sense of deep security there, which was the antithesis of what I wanted,” he said.
“I don’t mind admitting that I completely lost myself.
“But that was a very private thing for me and my family and my friends.
“And it wasn’t horrible. It was just well, he’s away from home and living in this mad world.”
In his own way, King said that he wants to 'fight' like Myers and to keep 'those motorcycle wheels turning'.
Anish Vij