I used to chase Michelin stars, but now I'm famous for my sausage rolls says TV chef Tim Bilton
Months of grueling treatment followed but he was determined not to let cancer stand in his way and he was soon back behind his stove. “I was very driven,” he admits. “I knew what I wanted to do. I loved my wife and children, but I was focused on the restaurant.” Tim is married to Adele and they have two sons, Henry, 19, and Charlie, 13.
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Hide AdThen in the summer of 2015 Tim discovered the cancer had spread to his saliva glands and he was forced to admit that he needed to take time away from the business. For six weeks he travelled every day from his home in Holmfirth to the Weston Park Hospital, where he is now a patron, in Sheffield. The treatment took a toll not only on his physical health but his mental health as well – unusual for this eternally optimistic man.
There was a time, not that long ago, when all that drove chef Tim Bilton was to be the best and to gain a coveted Michelin star. But life got in the way and now his goals are very different. It was 11 years ago, just as he was about to open his fine dining restaurant the Spiced Pear at Hepworth, that Tim was diagnosed with a rare form of eye cancer.
But nothing seems to keep Tim Bilton down for long and when he was able, he was back at work, this time working for the Nicolson brothers at Canon Hall Farm, near Barnsley, while still undergoing regular check-ups. “It really started as a bit of favour and a way of honing my butchery skills but then I ended up developing their entire food and beverage offering,” he says.
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Hide AdDuring this time Canon Hall Farm and the Nicholson brothers were becoming TV celebrities as Channel 5 started to film the On the Farm series with Helen Skelton form there. Tim being no stranger to television having appeared on the BBC’s Great British Menu, became something of a roaming celebrity TV chef on the programme. When he started to suffer pains in his legs he thought he had aggravated an old footballing injury but soon his worst fears were confirmed, the cancer had returned and it was stage 4.
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He was told he might only have a year to live and started a course of immunotherapy which lasted for two years and once gain took its toll on the father of two. But rather than suffer in silence he decided to start a blog to talk abut his cancer in the hope it might help other men. But now five years on he has not been cured of cancer but it has been ‘deactivited.’ and while Tim and Adele don’t really know what that means they do what they have always done and take each day as it comes and remains as positive as possible.
"I have just had my six month scan. Adele does get very anxious just before it and says what do we do if the cancer is back, but I don’t think that way. If it has then we will deal with it like we have always dealt it.” But all was well.
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Hide AdHe has left Canon Hall Farm on a good note and still does a bit of filming for the programme. He became a director of four local restaurants but he knew fairly quickly it wasn’t for him. Then earlier this year he saw an advert saying the local butcher in his village of Kirkburton was retiring. "We’ve lived in this village for 25 years and every time I walked past the butchers I thought that would make a great London-style vibey type of butcher. After I saw the advert I called in and asked him if he was selling then would he give me first refusal. He told me how much he wanted for it and I shook his hand right there.” He then had to go home and tell Adele he had bought a butchers. "It was similar to when he bought the Butcher's Arms in Hepworth years ago,” recalls Adele. “He just came home and said we’re selling the family home and I’ve bought a pub’, this time it was a butchers.”
Visiting Tim in The Butcher’s Larder as he has renamed the shop, he seems immediately at home. This award-winning chef tipped for a Michelin star is happier mincing his high quality beef and making his sausage rolls, pork pies and creating a daily hot food offering as well as ready meals and a celebrated take away Sunday dinner. But he really wasn’t prepared for how his new venture would take off.
"It went absolutely mental. They were queueing out the door for the pork pies and sausage rolls. We were making in a day what the previous owner had made in a week. I was getting up at 4am and not getting home until 11pm – it was madness,” says Tim. Eldest son Henry is taking a gap year to help his dad, Adele is called in to do the social media and accounts and to help behind the counter when needed, and even Charlie helps after school and at weekends pressing all the burgers – it is real Bilton family affair which has quickly become the hub of the village and an attraction for miles around.
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Hide Ad“Who’d have thought that a few years ago I was striving for a Michelin star and now I’m famous for a sausage roll.” But it isn’t just any sausage roll. Tim, like the perfectionist he is, has research old recipes and includes ingredients such as mace and old fashioned seasoning in his sausage meat, the is ham hock terrine, potted meat. He makes 200 pork pies and 50 sausage rolls a day and normally sells out by lunchtime. "I think people love the fact that Tim makes everything himself – even down to the gravy,” says Adele
"I really wanted to do something nice for the village and I really felt that people wanted somewhere they could go and get great restaurant quality meat, but I can’t believe how it has taken off. I think we’ve hit a niche for what the people of Kirkburton want they don’t want to go to the supermarket for their meat or travel away from the village. The beef and and lamb I purchase is not cheap – it’s the best. When I had restaurants I would only serve the best to people and its the same now I have the butchers and the feedback I get from people is phenomenal,” says Tim. “Even the mince, people say they have never had mince like it.”
He sources most of his meat is from J Pennys in Leeds and convinced him to supply him after visit their facility in Rawdon Leeds. Clearly some of the draw is Tim himself as he chats to customers and give them tip on cooking a particular cut. But it isn’t just passing on his culinary knowledge that he enjoys. “I’ve had quite a few men come in and talk to me about their health issues and their wives have become quite emotional and then told me that it is the first time that a lot of them have even talked about how they feel.”
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Hide AdIt is clear not only is Tim loving the interaction with his customers, but he is loving working with his family. "What more can you want?” he says. “I’m still working long hours but not as long as I was when we first stared but I just love what I am doing and to have my family around me as well is a huge bonus.” He has just taken on another butcher to allow him to develop the upstairs of the property to give give him more time to develop the cooked side of the business. “At the moment I have to get up at 4am to prepare all the cooked offerings and only once that is done can I start the raw side. Paul Mallinson owned Atkinson’s butchers in New Mill with 32 years of experience and he came to see me after he sold his business – he is like an angel. People just come into your life for a certain reason. Going through what I’ve been through my thinking patterns are completely different I’m a massive believer that things happen for a reason. If you have positivity you attract positive people. I no longer chase the accolades – that’s not what is important to me now.”