This photograph was taken when I was about seven years old. I did a bit of modelling for a few years back then. My parents were fairly skint: we were two adults and five children living on a sailing barge in Kent. My father sold office equipment and my mum homeschooled us. They had some friends who were photographers and they suggested we could make some extra money by modelling. Some of my siblings tried it, but I was the most amenable.
This advert for Scott’s Porage Oats was shot in a studio in Chelsea, west London. There wasn’t actually porridge in the bowl. The photos took so long to get right and they needed to keep the steam going, so they used some kind of cigarette. It has become family legend that it was a joint: I remember my mother saying that there was a wacky smell and that the photographer was quite leftfield, but she disputes that now. I definitely have a hypnotic, spaced-out look that I don’t have in other pictures of me as a kid.
I have no idea what look the advertisers were going for. I was too young to know about the real cold war. It’s quite a serious pose, with the spoon clutched in my hand, and very 60s in its styling. They definitely didn’t want the jolly, happy-little-kid-bouncing-about look. They didn’t do much to me: that was how I had my hair at the time – very thick and wavy. Today, it’s thin and white – although it is still curly.
I was paid by the hour, £3 or £4, so it always helped if it took a long time, which this did. I’d be sitting under hot lights while they tried to get everything right; I must have been baking in that polo neck. The money all added up to a useful amount: we bought a couple of ponies that we had on the land, and we’ve still got a wooden kitchen table from Heal’s.
I was also in some commercials, but we didn’t have a television so I never saw myself. My grandmother was very proud. But it was more boring than glamorous. It basically involved an awful lot of sitting around and doing nothing, repeatedly – like taking one bite out of 50 biscuits. Then there was all the driving to and from London, which took hours. Around the age of nine or 10 my patience ran out – I went on strike and refused to do it any more. Modelling wasn’t my passion; back then, I was set on going to sea. I’ve more or less ended up there, too, because I’m now a doctor of nannofossils (plankton-like fossils) at University College London, and often go on research cruises.
Some time back in the 1990s, my mother dug out all the old magazines with the ads; I think this one was in a newspaper colour supplement. I photocopied it and have had it up ever since. It’s on the dining room wall at the moment. Even without me in it, I think it’s a great image. It used to confuse my son when he was around the same age, because he thought it was a picture of him.
Funnily enough, I was never a big oat eater. I didn’t particularly like the stuff, and I still don’t. I much preferred cornflakes.
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