James Martin opens up about family 'regret' that influenced his culinary career

James Martin has returned with Saturday Morning and in the first episode of the latest series, the TV chef opened up about one of his personal "regrets".

During a discussion about growing tomatoes with culinary experts Sat Bains and Francesco Mazzei, James shared some of his difficulties. "Varying degrees of success this year, that's one of the fascinations with growing your own stuff," he said.

"And one of the regrets that I have now is sadly, I lost both my grandfather and my uncle, not taking more advice, paying more notice really in their expertise when they were growing the tomatoes."

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James continued: "You sort of go down there, 'Why can't yours be the same as theirs was?' Because they've got love and care and attention all the time I guess really."

Thankfully, despite this, it hasn't deterred the 52-year-old from trying. "But it's just nice to give it a go every sort of season," he added.

James had teased the return of his hit TV show on Friday, posing alongside guest Jack Savoretti. The star debuted not only a new hairstyle, going for a striking spiky look, but he also showed off a new "slimmed-down" appearance.

Fans were quick to react to the star's new look, as one enthused: "Not been a bad one James glad your week's been good, you lost weight," and a second added: "Like the slimmed down version of Mr. Martin."

James has been open about his weight loss journey and he shared some of his secrets with HELLO! in an exclusive interview last year. "I'm taking care of my diet more these days and eating regularly," he told us, adding that "walking my dogs, fishing and working in my garden" helps him to relax.

He previously said: "Losing weight is a balance of everything, it's getting off your [expletive] and doing more and not eating less, but eating a variety of different things. I think a lot more so when people were locked down and bingeing on certain things."