It became known for its freeze-dried curries. Career Īfter graduating, Stein converted a mobile disco in Padstow, which he had run as a student, into a quayside nightclub with his friend, Johnny. īeing on his own, he read widely, reflected on his attitude to education, and applied successfully to New College, Oxford, where he earned an English degree in 1971. He travelled to New Zealand and Mexico around that time to "take some time out". Distraught by his father's suicide, at age 19 he went to Australia, where he worked as a labourer in an abattoir and as a clerk in a naval dockyard. He worked there as a chef for six months. Stein partially completed a hotel management traineeship with British Transport Hotels at its Great Western Royal Hotel in Paddington. He moved to a cram school in Brighton, gaining E grades in English and History. He took A-levels in English, History and Geography, but failed all of them. Stein was educated at Wells Court, a preparatory school just outside Tewkesbury, then Wells House, the Court's bigger sister-school at Malvern Wells, and then Uppingham School. Of German descent, Christopher Richard Stein was born on 4 January 1947 in Churchill, Oxfordshire, to Eric and Dorothy Stein.