Entertainment

Countdown to retirement? Not for former The Apprentice adviser Nick Hewer

With his new memoir hitting the shelves today, Countdown's Nick Hewer talks to Hannah Stephenson about being pals with Lord Sugar, how fame doesn't impress him, and why he'll pass on Strictly

Nick Hewer, presenter of Countdown and formerly of The Apprentice
Nick Hewer, presenter of Countdown and formerly of The Apprentice Nick Hewer, presenter of Countdown and formerly of The Apprentice

THERE are some things in life that former PR man and current Countdown presenter Nick Hewer can't stand – and reality TV is one of them.

"I watched a bit of Celebrity Big Brother the other day. Do you know something? I would prefer to eat my leg, parboiled, through fishnet tights than do anything like that, or go into the jungle or any of that.

"It's awful that people do it. Maybe they're hard up and they need the money to pay the tax bill which they ignored, or maybe they want to resuscitate some fading career in showbiz. How can people put themselves at the mercy of looking ridiculous?" the Swindon-born, Irish-educated presenter asks incredulously.

In the next breath, he admits: "I did it on The Great Celebrity Bake Off, which was bloody terrifying. I nearly had a nervous breakdown because of it. I went home and didn't speak to anyone for four days because I thought I looked such an idiot. I really tried but I was embarrassed.

"The only reason I did it was that it was for a good cause. I'm patron of Pancreatic Cancer Action and the whole thing was for Stand Up To Cancer."

Hewer's dry, acerbic wit and mock bafflement at some of the goings-on around him – characteristics which gained him legions of fans during his 10 years as Lord Sugar's adviser on The Apprentice – are ever-present in his conversation, and he is indeed "a humorous, all-round good bloke", as Jo Brand puts it.

I catch him as he's heading off for a break in south-west France, where he has a rural bolthole, before hitting the literary festival circuit back in the UK with his new memoir, My Alphabet.

In it, he charts alphabetically – but not chronologically – his life and times, from A for The Apprentice, to Z for Z-List, the category of celebrity he thinks he might be in as he reaches his twilight years.

Hewer, whose grandfather was a high sheriff of Belfast in the 1920s and who was himself ecudated at Clongowes Wood College, a Jesuit boarding school in Co Kildare, is now 74, but his TV career on The Apprentice started when he was nearing 60 and he did it for 10 years.

He still watches the show, and is still good friends with Lord Sugar, whom he met in 1983 when, as a PR consultant, he was taken on by Amstrad (founded by Sugar) to help with the launch of its home computers.

"He's terrific fun and dangerous and exciting," Hewer says of his friend. "He kicked off The Apprentice thing, which sparked 14 years of an extended career which has been extraordinarily beneficial, enabling me to bank some money when I should have been retired, and it also kept me working in interesting things."

He believes shows like The Apprentice and Dragons' Den demystify business, although he laments that so many youngsters are seeking celebrity status over substance.

Of The Apprentice he says: "I got out of it because I was just too tired. It was so exhausting. And I was getting a bit irritable."

Now, of course, he has presenting Countdown to keep him busy, but he recently dropped the after-dinner speaker circuit to make more time for himself and his partner of 20 years, Catherine.

He dedicates the book to Catherine, writing that she "righted this old boat, caulked the hull, took the helm and steered me into safer and kinder waters".

Indeed, after he was divorced from his first wife in the 80s and initially saw less of his two children, he threw himself further into work and bought the house in France so the children could spend holidays there – although that didn't work out.

"I threw myself into work. It was a seven-days-a-week job. The office became my home. Not seeing my children was a big sadness but that's the way divorced fathers sometimes have to live.

"The divorce did affect my relationship with my children, but it's OK now. But it took a long time."

He's now a grandfather of five, but laments that he's not good enough at his new role.

"I'm not attentive enough. I'm still working too hard. Whenever I'm invited to the children's plays or to a football match, I'm not available. I'm afraid I've still got that work ethic, which I'm going to try to kill off."

Retirement may not be on the cards, yet long absences from home suit his relationship, he says.

"Catherine is fantastic. But she's got her own business too, so she quite likes me being away."

He's done mammoth road trips through Russia, Mongolia and Sierra Leone, partly because he loves adventure and cars, and to raise money for charity.

"I may have turned a corner in terms of age," he muses. "I'm beginning to worry about it. At 70, something goes clunk and you suddenly realise you're not as agile as you were."

In the book, Hewer charts his various ailments and weaknesses over the years, the migraines triggered by smoking (which he gave up 20 years ago) and coffee, a colonoscopy, high blood pressure and a being an inch away from a stroke, which has been remedied with hypertension tablets.

Reflecting on how fame has changed his life, he says: "Am I enamoured of the celebrity lifestyle? Absolutely not. I'm quite happy down in south-west France, where nobody knows me from a hole in the road."

:: My Alphabet: A Life From A To Z by Nick Hewer is published by Simon & Schuster, priced £20.