Tom Parker Bowles: ‘King Charles is the loveliest man in the world – and I’m not just being oily’

The food writer (and son of the Queen), 49, on slasher movies, Tottenham Hotspur and Buckingham Palace

How do famous names spend their precious downtime? In our weekly My Saturday column, celebrities reveal their weekend virtues and vices. This week: Tom Parker-Bowles
As I get older, Saturdays become more and more sacred. Sundays are near to Monday, but Saturdays are full of promise. I’m currently living with my girlfriend in her place in north Kensington, so the first thing I do is let out her whippet, Marvin, and my Jack Russell, Maud.
While my girlfriend’s lying in, which I’ve lost the ability to do, I’ll go downstairs and make some fresh coffee, with which I’ll wash down endless middle-age-battling supplements, including Berocca, good bacteria pills for my gut, vitamin D and a mushroom supplement. I’ve no idea if they’re working but I’ve not been ill for a few years, so I like to think so.
I’ll skip breakfast as I don’t want to spoil my appetite for lunch, then read the papers and do Wordle on my phone, which I’d like to say I average in three, but it’s usually four.
I love reading in the bath for an hour. I’ve just finished Then We Take Berlin by John Lawton, which is very cynical and beautifully written and is about a cat burglar/spy in the Second World War. I’m a big fan of thrillers and spy novels.
I have a job which involves eating for a living, so for the last three years I’ve been going to reformer Pilates. I’m the oldest man there – everyone else is 20 years younger and has a body like a Greek god or goddess. If I didn’t go, I’d just be too fat and indolent.
After Pilates I feel like I’ve earned myself a fat lunch, so we’ll often go to a brilliant local Thai restaurant by Wormwood Scrubs called Fitou’s, where I’ll have blisteringly hot, non-farang raw prawns with garlic and chilli, with a bottle of wine. I know some people might visit their family for a bite to eat on a Saturday, but I don’t tend to nip down for lunch at Buckingham Palace and Clarence House as my mother is usually in the country at weekends now.
I’m more likely to see her and Charles in the week, and when I do visit, I have a special high-security card that grants me access. And no, she doesn’t leave a spare key under a flowerpot. I know the palace policemen well, as do my kids, so I just flash the card and they let us in, and we go and say hi and have a cup of tea, and for the kids that’s entirely normal. If I don’t know whether my mother is in or not, I usually find out just by reading the paper and realising, ‘Oh, she’s on a royal tour this weekend.’
Charles, who genuinely is the loveliest man in the world, and I’m not just being oily, knows so much about food and loves his food, as does my mother.
My son Freddy [14 – Tom also has a daughter, Lola, 16, both with ex-wife Sara] and I are huge Spurs fans, so if they’re at home, we’ll go and watch them play. Our ritual is a seafood lunch at Bentley’s in Piccadilly, then up to Tottenham to soak up moments of mediocrity interspersed with moments of great passion, followed by a visit to the chicken shop opposite the stadium at full time. If we’re in a celebratory mood, we might pop into that peculiar Nigerian restaurant-cum-nightclub on Tottenham High Road and end up doing karaoke.
Saturday evening means sport on the TV in the background and cooking Keith Floyd-style, although my liver’s not as strong as his was. There’s nothing better than cooking, stirring and tasting [Tom’s new book, Cooking and the Crown, Octopus, £30, is out now], accompanied by a nice glass of red wine, then we’ll take the dogs for a walk on the Scrubs while everything cooks.
I’m a movie buff, so occasionally we’ll go to the cinema, often the Prince Charles, ironically. I love lurid horror films and recently we watched Abigail, which is about a vampire ballerina. I’ve loved zombie and slasher movies, like The Driller Killer, ever since I was a teenager. My mother was super strict about what I watched, but my dad didn’t understand the ratings system as well as her.
We’ll sit down to eat and have another bottle of wine. Sadly, asking my mother if her and Charles fancy joining us to polish off a rib of beef isn’t really a possibility. They’ve got amazing chefs so why would they bother coming here? But I’m sure if I asked and booked it far enough ahead in the diary, they might come.
The days of staying out late on Saturday night are long, long gone, so we’ll watch another film after dinner, probably some Polish art film if it’s my girlfriend’s choice, then take the dogs out.
I never drink on Sunday, so by the time I get to bed – if I haven’t fallen asleep on the sofa – Saturday has been all about having a merry (not drunk) day of enjoyment, good food, restaurants, films and home cooking. I always sleep like a log.