Hairy Biker Si King: 'Dave and I are best mates in life and death'

"Just because Dave's passed it doesn't stop him being my best mate," says TV chef Si King. "That's not how that works. You know, you're mates for life and death."

It's been over nine months since Si's best friend and Hairy Bikers co-star, Dave Myers, died at the age of 66 from cancer.

"I'm always talking to him. I'll go, 'What do you think of that dude?' I mean, people will think I've lost my mind," says Si.

Their brotherhood first began over a love of motorcycles, curry, poppadoms, beer, and a game of pool, says Si. They went on to become the nation's favourite hairy cooking duo, dressed in leathers and throwing away the rule book when it came to TV cooking shows. With not one Michelin Star between them, their approach to cooking was refreshingly down-to-earth.

"It took us two series to work out that we probably should be using Pyrex bowls so people could see what we were putting in them," laughs Si.

But typically with the hairy bikers, not everything always went to plan - like the time they filmed the pilot episode of their show and were meant to fly off together in a glider - but couldn't get off the ground because they were too heavy. Or the time Si put chips on blue tissue paper to dry and it dyed them blue.

Throughout their travels they wanted to shine a light on different cultures and the foods of that region. In Japan, the duo even tried their hand at sumo wrestling and Si remembers Dave had gone the extra mile to make sure he looked good in his loincloth.

"This is what he was like, right," says Si, "He'd done his bikini line, I remember, and I went, 'You've done your… What! A born makeup artist.

"'No, it's got to look aesthetically pleasing,' Si remembers Dave saying.

Growing up in the north – Dave in the north-west and Si in the north-east – they both came from working class backgrounds. Dave's mum was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) when he was young and Dave became a carer for her early on. He was just eight years old when he cooked his first meal for the family of cheese and potato pie.

"On top of all of that, during his adolescence, he had alopecia and I think the way that Dave approached his life was indicative of his childhood really," says Si. "He wore those scars a little bit, of course he did, as everybody would, but it never stopped his enthusiasm for life though."

The bikers' strong bond was even apparent on Dave's wedding day to his wife Lili.

"I mean [Lili] finds it funny, but I'm sure at the time she found it pretty irritating. Dave would always go, 'Kingy, come on man, get in man, we're having a photograph'. I'm going, 'Dude, it's your wedding day, I'm in every photograph. Lil's going to go mad when she sees them.' He was like, 'No, no, no, come in.'"

Si says he even spent Valentine's Day with the couple. Right from the very beginning, they were like "two old slippers" says Si, albeit that they were very different people. Dave was comedic and Si says he fell into the role of playing off Dave's daftness.

One egg is never an oeuf - was just one of the jokes Si heard Dave repeat - over and over again. The similes were also never-ending, says Si.

"Oh, look at that, Kingy," Dave would say, "It's lighter than a hummingbird's toenail clippings."

Or "the onion is now more transparent than a bank manager's smile".

But the Hairy Bikers' main mission was to empower people to get back into the kitchen and cook, says Si, as food is the glue that binds us together - something that has been made even harder today with the stress and time pressures facing working families trying to earn a living.

"I understood, as did Dave, the importance of actually sitting round a table when we were little, because that's what formed us as adults," says Si. "And it was important, because you could see if your mum wasn't very well, or dad was a bit grumpy."