Who was AA Gill? The Sunday Times restaurant critic and columnist dead from cancer aged 62
The celebrated writer revealed he had "an embarrassment of cancer, the full English" just three weeks before his death
Just three weeks after revealing he had been diagnosed with "an embarrassment of cancer, the full English", the celebrated food critic and writer AA Gill has died aged 62.
He used his Table Talk dining column in the Sunday Times to disclose his battle with the disease, writing candidly of how it had spread: "There is barely a morsel of offal that is not included.
"I have a trucker’s gut-buster, gimpy, malevolent, meaty, malignancy."
Gill was born in Edinburgh in 1954 to English parents, but moved south of the border when he was one – the 'AA' stands for Adrian Anthony.
He was privately educated at St Christopher School in Hertfordshire before moving to London to pursue his ambition of being an artist.
Gill studied at the renowned Central Saint Martins art college and Slade School of Art, and spent six years trying to forge an artistic career.
He began writing professionally in his thirties, despite having dyslexia, publishing his first piece for Tatler magazine under a pseudonym in 1991. Gill joined the The Sunday Times in 1993, where he stayed until his death.
There, he forged a reputation as one of the most acerbic, irreverent and influential of restaurant critics, and a columnist whose unflinching style often courted controversy.
In 2010, The Sunday Times revealed he had been the subjects of 62 complaints to the Press Complaints Commission in a five-year period.
"I was four stone heavier, because I drank beer as well as whisky - sick, sweaty; you sweat all the time, you sweat urea."
The father-of-four's battle with drink was one of the reasons he said he felt he "hadn't been cheated of anything" when he was diagnosed with cancer.
He said: "Because of the nature of my life and the nature of what happened to me in my early life – my addiction – I know I have been very lucky."
Prior to his death, Gill spoke of his amazement at the public reaction that revealing his cancer had prompted.
“The reaction has been absolutely extraordinary,” he said. “I honestly had no idea what to expect, but I certainly didn’t expect what happened.
"I have been contacted by well over 3,000 people, offering help, or support, people sharing their own stories, and a lot just saying ‘thank goodness someone is doing this."
“I have come to the conclusion that it is helping people. It is extraordinary that it has touched.”
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AA Gill dead aged 62 just weeks after revealing he had cancer
Top food writer AA Gill reveals he’s ‘got an embarrassment of cancer’