I left school with no qualifications, now Irun my own pubs and restaurants

Ben Arnold chats to chef Gary Usher who is the force behind several renowned eateries

GARY Usher, the multi award who's winning restaurateur worked under some of the most influential chefs in the world and now has a string of successful restaurants to his name, didn't have much fun at school.

"I hated learning and I hated school," he says. "Probably dyslexia had a big part to play in it. You were just 'thick' if you had dyslexia back then." It wasn't identified until he was around 11, but, by then, he'd lost interest in school entirely. "I didn't get any support at all," he goes on.

It was when he took a job at a pub in North Wales after leaving school with no qualifications that a final attempt was made for him to at least get some kind of paperwork saying he'd been formally educated. He was sent to college for a day a week as part of his apprenticeship, but he hated that too.

"I think I went twice," he says. "And I just said to the pub "Iook I f**kin hate it" It was like school to me. I didn't want to listen to a teacher.

"I'll listen to a head chef or sous chef and I'll do anything that they tell me. I respected the chefs, I think, which sounds stupid but, at the time, they spoke to me on a level."