The CHESHIRE Magazine | Feature
Voice of
BRITAIN As Chris Evans looks forward to life after the BBC, Joe Worthington looks back at the life and career of one of Cheshire’s most famous personalities.
C
hris Evans is undoubtedly the most famous and popular voice on our radios and TVs and as he announced his move from BBC radio’s flagship Radio 2 breakfast show to Virgin Radio, we thought now is the perfect time to look back at the life and career of a Warrington-born lad who has made a success of his life from humble beginnings. How did a boy born on a council estate, who has never shied away from admitting that he was bullied for his appearance as a child, become one of the UK’s most recognisable media personalities?
CHRIS EVANS ARRIVING FOR THE SONY RADIO ACADEMY AWARDS, GROSVENOR HOUSE HOTEL ON 09/05/2011 © PICTURE BY: SIMON BURCHELL / FEATUREFLASH PHOTO AGENCY / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
Humble Beginnings Christopher James Evans was born on April Fool’s Day in 1966 on a council estate in Warrington. His father, Martin Joseph Evans, worked as a bookmaker and health authority clerk, and his mother, Minnie Beardsall, managed a corner shop. Evans’ start in life was quite difficult. He went to St Margaret’s Church of England Infants and Junior school in Orford, during which time he saw his father and two paternal uncles die from colorectal cancer. His mother also survived breast cancer, which is possibly the main reason for Evans’ commitment to charity fundraising throughout later life. He described this difficult time as the shotgun that started his race in life, pushing Evans to work hard and made a success of his life and make his late father proud. Evans passed his Eleven-Plus exams and started his secondary education at Boteler Grammar
School in Warrington, working part-time from the age of 13 at the local T.J. & B. McLoughlin’s newsagents in Woolston to earn money for his family. He eventually left grammar school and spent the last three years of secondary education in the local Padgate High School comprehensive, running an unofficial tuckshop to earn more pocket money. He left secondary school at the age of 16 and worked in more than 20 dead-end jobs in and around Warrington over the next four years of his life, including as a private detective and a Tarzan-ogram – where people hired him to dress as Tarzan and appear at parties playing the famous jungle adventurer.
It was not long before BBC Radio controllers spotted Evans’ iconic radio voice Early Career Successes When Evans took his first steps into the world of radio, he found himself in good company at Piccadilly Radio in Manchester. He started as an unpaid schoolboy assistant in 1983, and a year later worked as an assistant to the legendary
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