Team Trouble at Dark Creek by Nikki Tate

He was in trouble from the week he started school - his cousins, who shared his family name, were not well behaved and all the teachers didn't expect any less from the youngest Zonfrillo. 'I'd probably have been bored to tears, but that would've been mitigated by the chance to have him with me through the years as I went through all life's ups and downs'.Īnd his life had many ups and downs. 'I would have loved nothing more than being able to work with Dad every day. 'I've often looked back and wished that I'd stayed in town, taken over the shop,' he wrote. He didn't want to follow his father into barbering at the time - he felt as though he'd be wiling his life away in a shop six days a week - but as he aged, he wondered if that's what he should have done.

In his memoir, Zonfrillo recalled he was so desperate to spend time with his father that he volunteered to work in his barber shop on Saturdays - sweeping, washing hair, and bantering with gruff men who walked inside. His neighbours in Ayrshire were proud that someone from their small community made it big internationally, and were saddened when he passed.

However, missing from the published tributes were extraordinary details about his life in Ayrshire as a young boy, known then as Barry, who became the class clown because he hated going to school at Belmont Academy and didn't fit in. The words 'kind', 'caring' and 'generous' were continually repeated by those who knew him as a MasterChef judge and culinary mentor, a friendly neighbour, a devoted father, and an incredible chef.

Zonfrillo's body has now been released to his wife, Lauren Fried, and the precise cause of his death will be determined by the coroner.įriends, family and colleagues from all over the world flooded social media with tributes to the fallen chef and, by Tuesday morning, there was little doubt in anyone's mind about the kind of person Zonfrillo was.

No drug paraphernalia was located, no one else was in the hotel room, and police formed the view MasterChef judge had died of natural causes. When 'Jock' Zonfrillo was a young boy growing up in a small village in Scotland, he wanted to be just like his grandfather - a 'kind, wise nonno' running around with all his grandkids.īut his dream of growing old and watching his own four children become parents was ripped away in the early hours of Monday morning, when police found the 46-year-old dead in his bed at the boutique Zagames House hotel at Carlton in Melbourne. Pictured: Jock Zonfrillo, 46, who died on Monday

Team Trouble at Dark Creek by Nikki Tate