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Out of the Stewpot: My Autobiography
Ed "Stewpot" Stewart is one of country's best loved DJs. In this intimate and very frank autobiography he reveals the truth about his extraordinary career that has taken him from blagging interviews with Nat King Cole for Hong Kong radio, to becoming one of the best-known voices in the country. As a DJ on the pioneering pirate radio station Radio London, he was instrumental in putting the swing into the Sixties along with legendary names such as John Peel, Kenny Everitt, and Tony Blackburn. Packed with celebrity anecdotes, this is the ultimate behind-the-scenes portrait of life as the original superstar DJ.
324 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2005
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About the author
Ed Stewart
1 bookEd is a radio broadcaster. His real name is Edward Mainwaring, but works professionally under the name Ed "Stewpot" Stewart.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 11, 2019
Mildly amusing because Stewart comes across as an unreconstructed Thatcher-admiring and demonstratively lecherous Smashey and Nicey type with zero self-awareness. That could of course simply be a brilliant artifice, the way celebs in Ricky Gervais's shows routinely play with their public persona, but it isn't funny enough even so to be worth seeking out.
August 17, 2025
Great memories of listening to his Sunday Radio 2 show.
July 11, 2021
Disappointing account of his life by radio broadcaster Ed Stewart. A largely superfical version of his life and broadcasting career - lots of 'you had to be there' funny moments, which don't seem remotely funny so many years later in a poorly constructed memoir.
I picked this up for 50p at a charity sale and am only glad I didn't pay full price! I only bothered because as a youngster I had fond memories of his 10-year column in Look-in, the Junior TV Times! Ed comes across as a self-absorbed and not particularly likeable character...boasting about a drink-driving incident, smuggling jewellery from Hong Kong to avoid paying customs duty, pro-Mrs Thatcher and her 1980s Falklands war, bigging up Rolf Harris and Dave Lee-Travis (albeit written before their respective sexually predative activities became publicly known)...lots of questionable behaviour that doesn't improve with the passage of time. Not sure either how to react to him describing being sexually attracted to a 13 year-old girl who you end up marrying when she reaches 17 and you're 34!
It's a quick and easy read, as long as you don't mind endless pages about long forgotten celebrity pro-am golf tournaments. And for some reason his appearance on the Weakest Link warrants eight pages! Also disappointed that, despite writing his Look-in column for almost 10 years, it doesn't even get a mention in the text!
© Koplowitz 2021
I picked this up for 50p at a charity sale and am only glad I didn't pay full price! I only bothered because as a youngster I had fond memories of his 10-year column in Look-in, the Junior TV Times! Ed comes across as a self-absorbed and not particularly likeable character...boasting about a drink-driving incident, smuggling jewellery from Hong Kong to avoid paying customs duty, pro-Mrs Thatcher and her 1980s Falklands war, bigging up Rolf Harris and Dave Lee-Travis (albeit written before their respective sexually predative activities became publicly known)...lots of questionable behaviour that doesn't improve with the passage of time. Not sure either how to react to him describing being sexually attracted to a 13 year-old girl who you end up marrying when she reaches 17 and you're 34!
It's a quick and easy read, as long as you don't mind endless pages about long forgotten celebrity pro-am golf tournaments. And for some reason his appearance on the Weakest Link warrants eight pages! Also disappointed that, despite writing his Look-in column for almost 10 years, it doesn't even get a mention in the text!
© Koplowitz 2021
April 19, 2013
The book could be a series of his Look-in columns.
He is magnificently self-obsessed, a proper old school Water Rat, pro-celeb golfer, lots of mentions of his showbiz pals like Tarby.
He never gets below the surface of any aspect of his life. Ed spends 10 pages detailed the exchanges on a Celebrity Countdown, and half a page on the breakup of his marriage (after 30 years). His wife was 13 when he first met her, the daughter of a good friend, and 17 when they married. (He was 34. )
Plenty of moans about modern music too, and he sticks up for DLT over his hilarious on-air meltdown.
A toe-curlingly good read.
He is magnificently self-obsessed, a proper old school Water Rat, pro-celeb golfer, lots of mentions of his showbiz pals like Tarby.
He never gets below the surface of any aspect of his life. Ed spends 10 pages detailed the exchanges on a Celebrity Countdown, and half a page on the breakup of his marriage (after 30 years). His wife was 13 when he first met her, the daughter of a good friend, and 17 when they married. (He was 34. )
Plenty of moans about modern music too, and he sticks up for DLT over his hilarious on-air meltdown.
A toe-curlingly good read.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews