Nine things we learned from Bob Mortimer’s Desert Island Discs

3. Fame has helped him with a life-long shyness

Despite being known for his exuberant performance style, Bob is rather more reserved away from the spotlight: “My shyness probably defined the first 30 years of my life, really. It’s a crippling thing. It can be very lonely knowing that you’ve got things to say, but you daren’t say them. I’ve had this gift, I was on television, so people come up to me and say hello, so they make the first move and I learned in an easy way that it’s OK to talk to people, it’s OK to contribute and try and have your voice heard.”

4. His father’s early death shaped his whole life

When Bob was just seven years old his father was killed in a car crash. Bob says of that time: “I just remember coming back home, being ushered away by policemen, not knowing what was happening and then a couple of weeks later being told that my dad had died… and then crying and being very sad about it, then kind of forgetting about it really and thinking that it hadn’t affected me at all. But then, later in my life [I realised] it was probably the defining moment of my life, it’s defined my personality.”

5. He set fire to the family home when he was little

Bob describes himself as his mum’s “little helper” as a child, regularly taking on household chores – but he was also responsible for a big blaze in the family home. He explains: “I was counting my fireworks up and I lit some sparklers. It said on the packet ‘not suitable for indoor use’ – to me that meant that they’re OK for indoor use. The sparklers lit the box of fireworks and I ran the box through to the kitchen and let them go off. I then spent about an hour trying to get rid of all the marks out of the lino and off cabinets. I walked back into the living room and it was fully ablaze. I walked round to the two old ladies that lived next door and I said, ‘My house is on fire!’ And they said, ‘You know, we thought it was.’”

6. His dream was to be a professional footballer

Bob is a lifelong fan of Middlesbrough FC and growing up he thought he was heading for a career with the team. “I captained my school team three years earlier than I should have,” he explains. “I played for Middlesbrough’s youth team. At the age of 16, I went into a shed at the training ground and was told that they weren’t signing me on, so that was the end of that dream. Football was my life. I played football when I got to school, football every break and football as soon as I got home.”

7. The Who determined his choice of uni

One of Bob’s chosen tracks is The Punk and the Godfather from The Who’s 1973 rock opera Quadrophenia. The album tells the story of Jimmy, a disillusioned young mod who heads for Brighton. Bob says: “I was obsessed with this album at the time and reading the story of Jimmy having his adventures in Brighton, I just thought to myself, ‘Yeah, you know it’s time I had a little adventure. I’ve got to do this.’ Silly as it might sound, that’s why I went to Brighton.” Bob studied law at the University of Sussex.

8. He’s a qualified lawyer, and was once nicknamed ‘The Cockroach King’

Bob says that studying law never suited him and that he didn’t have any friends on his course, feeling alienated after turning up to a black tie drinks reception in his Middlesbrough football shirt. But he persevered with his studies: “I became a solicitor and joined a firm in Peckham, where there was a lot of cockroach infestation in the high rises in that particular borough. I was the first one to take them to court using the Public Health Act. I was on the front of the local paper. There was a picture of me as The Cockroach King. And I were right proud.”

9. Paul Whitehouse helped him recover from heart surgery – and won them a TV commission

In 2015 Bob underwent a triple bypass operation. He says: “You can go two ways after heart surgery, you can either get scared and just shrink onto your sofa and keep yourself safe, or you can engage with life again. I think I was probably in danger of taking the first option. Paul just kept asking me, ‘Come on, let’s go fishing.’ [He] kept asking, until eventually I did go fishing with Paul and I absolutely adored it. I discovered something that I’d lost from when I was young: just a purposeless day, with a friend just chewing the fat.” The two were ultimately commissioned to film their trips for BBC Two, making Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing. The show was a hit with viewers and has been re-commissioned for a second series.