The epidemic may have left many people stranded at home, but Jamie Oliver unintentionally lost treasured family heirlooms in the process.
Keep Cooking and Carry On, the first episode of Jamie’s lockdown series, was initially released in March 2020. In it, he produced cuisine from his Essex farmhouse using cupboard essentials, restricted supplies, and substitutions.
The 20 episodes, which were shot on his and his family’s phones with the help of his wife Jools, 48, and some of their kids as the crew, were made to encourage people to enjoy cooking while under lockdown and confined to their homes.
Jamie, 47, has now disclosed that the lockdown show came at a rather high personal cost.
His personal files were all accidentally erased when transferring the digital video of the show to editors for airing.
‘In doing that, sadly, I lost all of my pictures and videos of the last 17 years of my life,’ he said.
‘So, there was a price to pay and that was probably losing [all the pictures and videos of] the birth of all my children,’ he added when speaking to The Daily Telegraph.
With the aid of professionals, there have been attempts to recover the memories, but he has so far been unsuccessful.
‘Once it’s gone its gone,’ he added.
‘I have mates who work really senior at Apple, and I have spoken to engineers and there is no bubble, no safety net, no outer rim. I kept saying: “there must be something! There must be something!
‘But sadly, throughout that process, everything is gone. So, I guess the moral of the story is, stop filming your children and live in the moment.’
Jamie and Jools share five children – Poppy, 21, Daisy, 20, Petal, 14, Buddy, 12, and River, six.
But even though he is devastated to have lost these memories of family gatherings, tying the marriage a second time lately marked a significant achievement for him.
After 23 years of marriage, Jamie and Jools rekindled their vows earlier this month in the Maldives.
At the time, he posted a gallery of photos on social media showing him and his family having fun on tropical beaches along with the announcement of the wedding.
He said that they thought it would be ‘a special moment to celebrate renewing our wedding vows before the kids all start leaving the nest’, also describing the ceremony as ‘really special, funny and romantic’.
Jamie: Keep Cooking and Carry On is streaming on All4.
