I certainly am now, given the hand that’s been dealt me this year,” Myers says. “I think about the past with huge, great jealousy, and affection. Watching some of our old episodes on the telly when I’m ill, I don’t look like myself. And I look at myself there with my best mate, thinking, you know … I remember I said to Lil, ‘That used to be me.’ ‘No,’ she said. ‘That is you.’” But over the seven months since his diagnosis in late March, it must have been hard to keep his old self in mind. For the Hairy Bikers, nothing says love and home like the smell of a cake in the oven, a homemade loaf or a freshly baked pie. I tell you,” Myers says, “I’ll feel I’ve made it when I get the all-clear from this bloody cancer. That’s going to be completely life-changing, life-affirming. And life never will be the same again.” The recipes here are sensible. Nothing is too cheffy. These are goods that we can imagine ourselves making and enjoying. All the ingredients are readily available and nothing outrageously expensive, well, apart from the butter.

Si and Dave met on the set of a TV drama in 1995 and have been cooking and riding together ever since. They have now written 30 cookbooks, includingUltimate Comfort Food, Eat Well Every Day, Brilliant Bakes, Simple Healthy Food, Veggie Feasts, One Pot Wonders, British Classics, Mediterranean Adventure, Mums Know Best, Bakeation, Meat Feasts and 12 Days of Christmas. In 2012, the boys shed more than six stone between them on The Hairy Dieters: How to Love Food and Lose Weight. To assemble, spread the pastry base with the mustard. Top with the sausage meat, pressing it down to compact it, then spread the apple mixture on top. Roll out the remaining pastry and use it to make a lid. Brush the edges with beaten egg and crimp them together. Brush the top of the pie with egg and cut a couple of vents in the centre to release steam.To assemble the pie, press about a third of the cheese mixture over the base layer of pastry. Top with a layer of potatoes, then repeat with another layer of the cheese mixture. Add a second layer of potatoes, then top with the remaining cheese mixture. Press everything down quite firmly. Si King hails from North East England and is a big, blond bearded biker with an infectious laugh. He worked for many years as an Assistant Director and Locations Manager for film and television, including the Harry Potter films. Si and Dave have made it even easier - and more delicious - to eat meat free. These recipes are a real turnip for the books ... so get cooking and enjoy. First, make the pastry. Put the flour and baking powder in a bowl and add a generous pinch of salt. Add the butter and the suet or lard and rub them into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the egg and just enough cold water to make a firm dough. Myers says he is proud of King for his work this year, but has King felt less of a hairy biker for being alone? “Wow. No?” he asks, folding his arms. “How do I answer that?”

The Hairy Bikers are having a tough time. David Myers has no hair and Si King has no bike. It sounds like an existential crisis. King’s problem is easily fixed because he is “in between motorcycles” and can’t wait to get his leg over the saddle again. But Myers is 14 sessions into a course of chemotherapy, with six to go, and his year “hasn’t been normal” to say the least. He prefers not to specify the type of cancer “because everybody then goes Googling, everybody becomes an amateur doctor … And I don’t want to be judged – yet,” he adds. “A huge inconvenience,” he says ceremoniously, “is the best way to describe it.” Myers can relate. His daughter is in the process of buying a first flat and confronting the “possibility that the mortgage may double”. As a student, he used to sit in Karl Marx’s chair at the British Library – was that a statement of ideology? “No,” he says, “it was nothing political.” He just thought it was cool. When Myers began chemo, did King consider shaving his head in sympathy? ‘If he’d asked us, I probably would have’ Dust your work surface with flour. Take two-thirds of the dough and roll it out to fill a 20cm round cake or pie tin. Put the pastry-lined tin and the remaining dough in the fridge to chill until ready to fill.When they worked as crew, Myers and King were aware of performers as “the talent”, and I wonder at what point they realised they had become the talent. “We never have,” King says immediately. “Never have,” Myers agrees. In fact, when they filmed one of the first BBC programmes, the crew went for pizza, and “I got kind of nervous. I said to the director: ‘Have we pissed the crew off? Nobody’s asked us for supper.’ He said: ‘Normally the talent don’t eat with the crew.’ It broke the ice. But that wasn’t us at all. Crikey, no.” Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and add the onion. Fry over a low to medium heat until the onion is translucent but still has a little bite to it. Stir in the thyme, sage, and apples and continue to cook for another 3 or 4 minutes. Add the cider, apple juice, or water, together with the cider vinegar, sugar, and allspice. Stir to combine and then bring the mixture to the boil. Simmer until most of the liquid has evaporated and the texture is verging on jammy. At last, vegetarian and vegan food Bikers' style! In this brand-new collection of down-to-earth yet satisfying meat-free dishes, Si and Dave have gathered together their most hearty and warming comfort food ... that just happen to be vegetarian ! Triple tested, with maximum taste and minimum fuss, these recipes are simply epic. From the ultimate veggie curries to the perfect crowd-pleasing tray bakes, satisfying soups, pastas and pies to a veggie twist on burgers, barbecues and a banging breakfast brunch, The Hairy Bikers' Veggie Feasts is bursting with meat-free delights you'll turn to time and time again, all made with ingredients that can be bought easily and won't cost the earth. It’s easy to imagine the evening unspooling as they discovered their common ground – there is so much of it. Both were bullied as children: King for his weight, Myers for alopecia. Both came from families of “grafters” – King’s dad working on ships, Myers’ at the paper mill in Barrow-in-Furness. Both had much older siblings, and seriously ill parents: King was eight when his father died, while Myers’ mother was diagnosed with MS when he was seven. But, no, they say, they didn’t talk about any of this. That was the great thing about writing their 2015 autobiography, Blood, Sweat and Tyres, King says. “We found out quite a lot about each other.”

For King and Myers, there is no such thing as on- and off-camera selves. “As Dave often says, we’re not complicated enough to be anyone else,” King says. Myers butts in. “My wife said the same thing. ‘I’ll shave mine out of support.’ I said: ‘Don’t do that because, then, you do realise, we can’t go out together?’ Not being sexist, but I think [baldness] is easier for a bloke.” He was studying the pre-Raphaelites at the time, “fascinated by the decadent Victorians”, and craved a lavish cascade of hair, but “I had nothing! I couldn’t get a corkscrew curl to save my life!” he says. The alopecia did help to make his recent hair loss feel livable, though. “I just said to my wife: ‘Oh shit, get the clippers out. I’m done with this.’ It was harder for her to do, because she’d never seen me with no hair. But she did come out with a great line when my eyebrows went. She said: ‘Darling, you look like they pulled you out the mould before you’d finished.’” Over the years, they have both had illnesses and accidents: Myers life-threatening pneumonia, King an aneurism. And Myers also had the pain of losing his fiancee, who died of cancer in 1998. Have these experiences helped him to cope with his cancer? What’s the point of mulling over the old shit that’s caused trouble?” Myers adds. “If we got together, are we going to sit there, and I’m going: ‘My mum had MS,’ and you, your dad with kidney failure? No, we’re going to go fishing and get drunk and have a good time. Together, we’ve brought each other quite a bit of happiness.”

Myers wants to return to work next year. “I’m hoping. Hand on my heart, I am. It’s going to take work and physiotherapy to get myself stronger,” he says. “But that’s going to be a hell of a day. That pizza down the pub is going to be quite special.”