Jamie Oliver: 'Food was always a big part of my holidays' This is me and my old mate Jimmy Doherty on holiday. We grew up in the same village, Clavering in Essex, and went to all the same schools. We lived about a mile down the road from each other, and once a year our families would hire two massive boats and go away for a week to the Norfolk Broads. My family ran the local pub in Clavering so there was a bunch of local friends who came with us. Food was always a big part of the holiday, and so was the countryside. For me and Jimmy it was the perfect mixture. He has always been a nature geek - when I used to go to Jimmy's house, I'd be watching Steptoe and Son and he'd be sitting there taking apart a weasel he'd found in the street and pickling it. Generally my old man would head up the cooking on the boats but I'd do a lot too - I'd been cooking in the pub kitchen for two or three years during summer holidays and weekends. With limited kit we'd make anything pot-based - bolognese, curries, cottage pie, chicken pie. I find it exciting to this day that every couple of miles on the Broads you would find a water tank turned on its side, offering up local fruit and veg, and next to it would be an honesty box. I was always fascinated that people would let you pay for things without a shop assistant and by how easy it would be to take the money. My friendship with Jimmy was quite Huckleberry Finn-like. He lived next to the River Stort so as kids we would be found mucking about down at the river, fishing, trying to build rafts, building tree houses, dens. We used to fish a lot on holiday, too. I remember one night we went out to dinner in a town and either me or Jimmy hadn't put the lid back on the maggot pot properly. When we got back one lady was screaming her heart out because a couple of pints of maggots had got out and climbed all over the boat. Now is the perfect time for me and Jimmy to do a TV show together - it feels as though we are 12 again, and it has been a right laugh. In the show we take on other countries to see who produces the best food. Most other countries have, for years, thought Britain has been responsible for some pretty shoddy food, but whether it be farmers" markets, artisan producers, chefs, restaurants, street food, the past 15 years have been absolutely incredible for this country. Metaphorically speaking, we are standing on the white cliffs of Dover shaking our fists in the air and saying, 'Come on then, if you think you're hard enough. 'Jamie and Jimmy's Food Fight Club" starts on December 6 on Channel 4