New MasterChef judge Grace Dent reveals secret job she hated before finding fame
New MasterChef judge Grace Dent has revealed the secret job she hated before finding fame - confessing she used to work in a service station on the M6 motorway and she couldn't stand the early starts and the constant rotation of tasks.
Grace Dent worked in a service station on the M6 before finding fame.
The new MasterChef judge has revealed she wore an "egg-stained uniform" and worked very early shifts at Southwaite services before launching a career as a journalist - and she hated working there because she never knew what she would be tasked with when she turned up in the morning.
During an appearance on the Mercedes-Benz Vans Under the Bonnet podcast - the UK’s first podcast exclusively for van drivers, Grace explained: "I’m going to let you into a secret, I worked at a service station. I worked at Southwaite service station on the M6.
"Everybody in my sixth form used to try and work there part time. If you got the job, you had to do very early shifts. They would pick you up in a mini-bus just to make sure you got there.
"They’d take you at about 5am, off down the M6, and disperse you to different parts of the service station. You never knew where you were going to go.
"You could end up on the teapoint - where you stand and just make cups of tea all day, being splashed by scalding liquids, boiling water, all day.
"Or you might be doing the tables. Or you might have to go and work in the shop. You were never on the same thing."
When asked to share the "worst job", Grace revealed she hated shifts in the restaurant because customers often argued about their bills.
She said: "Toting up the food bill at the till in the restaurant, because everybody started kicking off about the price.
"As if you, this 18-year-old girl in an egg-stained uniform, got up that morning and made up the prices - as if I decided how much tea and scones would be.
"People did really kick off. It felt like every single person that came to the till, I would go: ‘Four pounds, 95,’ and they’d go: ‘I’ve only had a cup of tea … "
Grace eventually put the service station work behind her, launching a career as a journalist and novelist and becoming a food critic for the Guardian newspaper before venturing into TV with a brief stint on 'f I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!' and regular appearances in the 'MasterChef' franchise.
Grace will be co-hosting 'MasterChef' after replacing Gregg Wallace, who stepped down after being accused of misconduct last year.
She previously admitted it was a "dream come true" to be asked to fill the former greengrocer's shoes but she felt a slight hint of trepidation about picking up the reins.
Speaking to Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley on This Morning, she said: "Maybe for about 10 seconds. Now I've got those reins - no! "It's one of those wonderful shows on British TV, and when you go out into the public, you feel that you can't eat anywhere in privacy ever again, you can't even go into a supermarket without people looking into your trolley and going, 'I can't believe she's bought that.'
"But, it was a dream come true to move to this role."
Prior to her appointment, Grace regularly appeared on the BBC cookery show as a guest judge but she highlighted how being a host is a "very different job" because it comes with the power of sending people home.
She added: "I've never sent a person home, and now I am that person, I am now the baddie - and I don't enjoy doing that."
