I was always the new kid in school I'm the kid from a broken family I'm the kid who had no dad showing up at the father-son stuff I'm the kid that was using food stamps at the grocery store.

Baseball is the president tossing out the first ball of the season. And a scrubby schoolboy playing catch with his dad on a Mississippi farm.

After graduating from flares and platforms in the early 1970s I started drama school wearing a pair of khaki dungarees with one of my Dad's Army shirts accessorised by a cat's basket doubling as a handbag. Very Lady Gaga.

I had the opportunity to go to law school and my dad who was an accountant couldn't believe I wanted to walk away from that and start cooking.

In a school where everyone is famous or rich or whatever you have a culture 'What does your dad do?' 'What does your mom do?'

The founder of the Mona Foundation actually knew my dad for years and the more I learned about it the more I realized I really found the perfect charity. It sponsors schools and educational initiatives all over the planet.

Within our culture every school has a swimming pool. We lived on the coast. People swam in the surf. It's a very sporty nation and at that particular time anyone who had an artistic bent was very much an outsider. So if you liked reading or ideas or playing the piano then your dad viewed you as a sissy basically.

I met Gemma my wife when she was 12. She had a schoolgirl crush on me and her dad had arranged for her to meet me. Later she started coming to my concerts but I only got to know her well after her mother died. I rang to see how she was and that's how it started.

I say this as a young dad seeing children going into primary school: I don't think we should underestimate the formative effect on a child of those first years in primary school.

My mom and dad met at Anaheim High School. After they got married all they wanted to do was have four children and they did.