Bobby George exclusive: 'I hate kids. And don't get me started on Peppa Pig'

Holding court over a brew inside the 17-bedroom mansion he built with his own hands, Bobby George, darts’ most recognisable character, runs through a few of his dislikes while his three Jack Russell-cross dogs waddle around our feet. It is a lengthy list.

The London Underground, New York City, pollution, immigration, politicians and Japanese food are some of the more conventional targets. Others are less orthodox.

“It’s not f—ing worth 30p for a piss,” he complains, focusing his crosshairs on train station toilets that charge for use. “I’d pay a fiver for a s— though, and a tenner if I was touching cloth.”

Just behind him on the wall of the main kitchen - he has a separate kitchen to cook his speciality Chinese buffets - is what appears to be a heartwarming family photo of George, his wife Marie and five of their eight grandchildren.

“I f—ing hate them,” he says of his offspring when asked about the photo. “I f—ing hate kids and snow. At least snow goes away, though; you can’t get rid of kids.

“They’ve always got that f—ing c— Peppa Pig on. And George [Peppa Pig’s brother] is always f—ing crying.”

With a broad smile, he quickly adds: “Miserable c— aren’t I?”

George is something of a dying species. Over an afternoon fishing at the lakes he personally excavated in his back garden, enough crude jokes flow from his mouth to result in his cancellation many times over. Expletives are incessant, but so are laughs. Everything is said with a glint in his eye.

A born entertainer who honed his craft in boozers and refuses to kowtow to political correctness, George remains as magnetic as ever even halfway through his 77th year and with a slight stoop starting to develop in his hulking physique.

Today, his neck and non-throwing left arm are notably bare of their customary gold jewellery - “I only wear it if I’m going out,” he says - but the rasping cockney voice is familiar to anyone who has ever watched darts.

A generation ago, having belatedly taken up the sport aged 30, George twice reached the world final, twice won the prestigious News of the World Championship and became darts’ first full-time exhibition player. He has since become best known for his work as a television pundit, most recently on last month’s BT Sport coverage of the inaugural World Seniors Masters.

Increasingly though, more time is spent at the Essex mansion he spent six years building from 1994 and continues to renovate every day despite the toll his labours take on his body. He is due for a chest X-ray the day after we meet, reminds Marie, his wife of 35 years who organises every element of his life. “If I go out I have to ask her for money,” he happily admits.

George Hall, the name that adorns the traditional pub sign outside the front gates, remains his pride and joy. The house, a grand stucco-fronted building with a stained-glass window in the shape of a darts board above the front door, is guarded by security cameras covering every angle.

A window cleaner, nightclub bouncer, industrial granite floor layer, plasterer and welder in his pre-darts life, George remains firmly of the belief that a job is best done yourself, and his workshop would be the envy of most professional tradesmen, crammed with every conceivable tool and machine.

His current project is painting the entire outside of the house, to Marie’s reluctant acceptance: “He shouldn’t, but you can’t tell him no. We’re getting older and can’t manage it all.”

Despite Marie admitting she would prefer to downsize, George remains resistant: “I don’t want to move. She knows I’m getting old, and to maintain it like I do, you’re going to run out of steam. But I’m not going to stop until I f—ing die.”

There is another reason for George’s yearning to stay. He cannot put an exact date on the first time he started fishing because he has done it “since I can remember”, cycling from his childhood Barkingside home in east London to set up on Hainault Lake.

“I followed my mate and we used to go all over,” George reminisces. “Winter time, freezing cold, ice everywhere, it didn’t bother us. As long as we had bread and butter, we’d light a fire and I’d love it.”

When he found the site of his current Essex home, the prospects outside persuaded him to undertake the enormous project: “The garden was an entirely waterlogged swamp, but it’s all blue clay, which is marvellous for lining lakes. What a result. To have lakes in your own garden is very hard to get.”

After more typically hard graft, he excavated and created three pristine lakes, which are open to the public and form the basis of the fishing days he hosts, featuring Marie’s breakfast, a Chinese buffet cooked by George, and drinks in his own private bar after sundown.

Telling captivating tales of years gone by, while intermittently passing on his knowledge of bait and rods, it is difficult to imagine a time when such a natural showman was not the centre of attention.

“I used to be a bit shy,” he says, of his old self before he became synonymous with his playing attire of excess bling, billowing cloak, ostentatious crown and candelabra.

“When I first wore the cloak I felt like Del Boy running down Peckham High Street dressed as Batman. I still wear it all and feel a bit of a p—- at my age, but everyone likes to see it. I could play better than I could talk then. Now I can talk better than I can play.”

A product of an era that produced household names in Eric Bristow, John Lowe and Jocky Wilson, George chose a different path to his peers, gaining employment from breweries and opting to ply his trade predominantly in pubs and clubs rather than tournaments. “Once I made my name, I took the easiest route to make money,” he says.

He suggests he was the first person to walk on stage for a match accompanied by music, originally using Gary Glitter’s I’m The Leader Of The Gang (I Am!) before switching to Queen’s We Are The Champions.

“Everyone else copied me, so I did something for darts that no one else has ever done,” he says. “Without me doing that, darts would be f—ing boring wouldn’t it?”

Long associated with the now defunct BDO strand of the sport, he says the simple reason he never joined the breakaway PDC was because “no one ever asked” him.

Despite the vast sums of money now available in the game - last year’s PDC world champion earned £500,000 - he insists he would rather have played in his era of the 1980s and 1990s than the “sheltered, ultra professional” current version.

With the exhibition circuit remaining a staple commitment, he still practises occasionally in his bar, surrounded by framed photographs and cuttings of his greatest darting moments, but admits “it’s boring walking up and down to collect darts in your own house by yourself”. Yet he has no plans to retire, saying: “When the phone don’t ring, I don’t work.”

Tending to George Hall requires all-day maintenance, while the immaculate lawns throughout the 12-acre site need mowing every two days. It is gruelling work that logic - and Marie - suggests should be toned down in his twilight years.

Fortunately, fishing provides some respite. As he effortlessly lands carp and roach, while listening to birdsong on a still afternoon, he considers the future.

“I want to live a bit more,” he says. “If ever you think you’re fed up with life, you get a day like this, with the blue sky and the trees, and it’s lovely isn’t it? So long as Marie keeps feeding me right, I’ll keep going.”