Bonkers about bikes, friends with Liz Hurley, TV presenter, world land speed record holder, and former heroin addict. Henry Cole talks about his new memoir, A Biker’s Life: Misadventures on (and off) Two Wheels, as he hits the road to the Raworths Harrogate Literature Festival.
Henry Cole has travelled a long way from Malton, where his father grew up on the edge of the Castle Howard estate, before he was posted to India during the dying age of the British Raj. “Yorkshire to me is God’s own country in a way – great motorcycling and my old man came from there.”
Just don’t mention the Tour de Yorkshire legacy. “I f***ing hate cyclists,” he says. “I get frustrated sometimes with MAMALs. Middle Aged Men in Lycra. But I am one of those admittedly.”
His bicycle is black, and he wears all black on his daily 14-mile circuits to keep fit at 54, so ‘none of my mates see me doing it.’
His memoir is a ‘rollercoaster ride’.
“I started life as a session drummer, then I became a news cameraman, then I went on the road for years with rock and roll bands, then I directed a movie about heroin addiction based on my life, because I was a heroin addict for five years. After that I started driving round the world in cars for TV shows and riding bikes, and now I have a motorcycle brand. I’m not quite sure where I fit in society so I’ve always tried to rebel against it; rebelling against what I know not, I always say I’m a rebel without a cause.”
Henry’s great-great uncle was Prime Minister William Gladstone. He was educated at Eton and his ‘stifling upbringing’ fuelled his rebellion. “It all went slightly wrong at Eton when I started smoking weed.”
As to his upbringing he says, “I knew there was love, but it was masked by the stiff upper lip attitude of an army major father. I lived in a bloody great Rectory in Norfolk with 14 bedrooms, me, a dog and mum and dad, and I wore a little tweed jacket and went to prep school … When I got to Eton, it was even more intense – you were with these elite people.”
The years ’83 to ’88, were hardest to write: “I don’t actually remember a lot that happened to me because I was out of my head.”
Henry’s memoir is a, ‘true honest missive: “It’s about the life of a person who should never have gone down that low and how motorcycling has allowed me to fulfil my individualism rather than resorting to tin foil and a quarter gram of smack every hour.”
“I felt I had a story to tell of people who have lost their way in life and didn’t really know what they were rebelling against but demanded in some way, however small, to be an individual. Motorcycling is an intrinsic part of that ethos.”
Nine of his friends have died from drugs.
“It’s an incredibly lonely place being an addict. You can’t actually share your life, your genuine you, with anyone else apart from other junkies. So spiritually and mentally I did I’m sure, die inside. It took me a long time to realise there is more to life than tin foil and heroin, genuinely – because I didn’t understand what life was all about.”
Life, he says, is about ‘contentment’.
“It’s about finding that contentment, whether that’s through Narcotics Anonymous, through religion, through gardening, through your career – if you can find that, you have hope, you’ve got another reason to live.”
Aged 28, he directed a film inspired by his heroin addiction, Mad Dogs and Englishmen starring Elizabeth Hurley.
“It was a disaster,” he says, saying they were all rookies on set. “The only thing that worked was my friendship with Elizabeth Hurley.”
As presenter of the World’s Greatest Motorcycle Rides on the Travel Channel Worldwide, Cole is one of the most recognisable names in motorcycling. He is scathing about celebrity for celebrity sake after experiencing it with a famous ex-girlfriend: “It’s not a nice place to be man.”
“If you’re famous for something great, if you’re famous for being famous you’re an idiot. If fame goes, I’m left with what I adore and love and would do anyway…I’ll revert to my shed with my friend Sam, who I film Shed and Buried with, and we’ll build beautiful bikes.”
So is he ready to buy a Volvo?
“It’s the one thing to avoid!” he laughs. “But will I drive my old Land Rover around the place? Yeah sure I will. Am I content? Yes, very definitely…I made a decision a few years ago that if you’re getting to the stage in life where you don’t absolutely at a gut level have gratitude for what you’ve got, you are totally f***ed, and there is no point in being on this planet.”
In 2013, Henry was at Bonneville Salts Flats attempting a world land speed record for a vintage bike. “I went and set that record. You don’t need to be a rich kid to do that. You just have to be a person with a little bit of pride and ambition. I did a TV show on it, and couldn’t help myself collapsing in tears because 25 years before that day I was on 250 quid of heroin every day, my company was bust and I tried to kill myself twice. You know, there is hope in that, and if someone gets a little bit of that message, then there’s a reason to write this book.”
He hopes audiences in Harrogate will leave with a new understanding. “Addiction is something that costs society billions of pounds, because no one’s really getting to grips with it…Don’t think being an addict makes you washed up and socially unacceptable. Channelled in the right way it’s the most fantastic attribute to have. So that’s what I’d like people to take away. That, and to go and buy a motorcycle!”
A Biker’s Life: Misadventures on (and off) Two Wheels is published by Quercus.
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