Paul Young remembers the moment when he first realised he was famous. He had just performed Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home) on Top Of The Pops and was driving home from the studios in his trusty Vauxhall Chevette.

“I stopped at some lights and saw people looking in at me and pointing, saying, ‘That’s Paul Young!’ then clocking the car and thinking it couldn’t be!”

Nineteen eighty-three was a giddy year for Young. He was riding high on the success of debut album No Parlez, which produced a string of hits including Love Of The Common People and Come Back And Stay, and he had just started dating model – and future wife – Stacey Smith, who appeared in the latter song’s video.

Happy years spent knocking about in bands including Kat Kool & The Kool Kats, Streetband and the Q-Tips had helped him shake his childhood stutter and gain the experience and confidence that saw him go on to become one of the most recognisable faces of the 1980s.

“I was very lucky,” he says. “I’d spent a lot of time trekking up and down motorways and having the time of my life, and I think fame happened at just the right time for me.

I had good friends around me and we were all very upbeat.”

Thirty years on, Young is a father-of-three, greying slightly and still working in music as the frontman of Los Pacaminos, a Tex-Mex band initially formed for a bit of fun but going strong after two decades.

Gigs are sporadic – “It’s the best we can muster until we get a runaway hit,” jokes Young – but driven by a shared joy of playing live.

“I’ve always loved it. I think it was going out and playing in bands that helped me become comfortable in myself. You’d never have thought I was shy watching me in Streetband or the Q-Tips because I’d worked my way through it. Performing was a way of forcing me out of myself.”

He feels sorry for performers who find fame through TV talent shows such as The X Factor. “I think it’s really important to work your way up or you miss out on a lot of the fun of being in a band. I’d had a great time and when I became famous it was almost like the fun was over and it was time to be serious. These kids today go from singing in their bedroom to being mobbed in the street without the fun of doing things for themselves and making mistakes.”

Young quit the music business in 1988 feeling that his life had stopped being his own. By the time he made his third album, he had to be accompanied everywhere by two security guards.

But he admits the return to civilian life took a little adjustment.

“There were silly things like remembering to pay for a meal at the end of the night.

The tour manager had always held the purse strings and we’d just walk out when we’d finished. I was still doing that – which didn’t go down very well with restaurants! I didn’t know how to do something as simple as booking a holiday because I’d never had to do it myself. “ Looking back there are things he wishes he’d done differently. “I wish I’d been a bit tougher with people and given myself more credit for things. I gave the production credit for my first album to Laurie Latham because it was important to him but really that album was a co-production.

I was accused of being a puppet of the record label but it couldn’t have been further from the truth. I also wish I’d pushed myself to write more songs [several of Young’s biggest hits are covers] but then maybe I just wasn’t ready.

I think the songs I write now are much better with the benefit of experience.”

Fame was great while it lasted, he says, “But I can’t deny I was relieved when the waters finally settled”.

The past few decades have at times proved turbulent for Young; he made some property investments which fell through – “I’m still angry about it” – and in 2008 split up with wife Stacey after she had an affair. But the couple remained on good terms and reunited in 2009.

Musically, he has never matched the success he had in the 1980s but at 57, he’s philosophical about it – enough to join some of his contemporaries on the various 1980s revival tours he had avoided for a time.

“In the 1990s I was reluctant to do anything like that because I’d been trying to forge my way through with new material and grow with it but now I’m far enough away from those days to look back on it and enjoy it.

“The 1980s tours are great.

You get to see your old friends and it’s funny how we’ve all grown up. I think everyone appreciates the fact they had these hits and can still go out there and bring people pleasure.”

He’s enjoyed developing his talents for cooking, too.

After winning Celebrity Masterchef in 2006 and taking part in Hell’s Kitchen with Marco Pierre White, he spent a period working in a restaurant that Stacey and her then-partner owned in north London, where he created a New Orleansthemed menu.

He first became interested in the cuisines of other cultures when touring.

Places such as Mexico and Italy “set my taste buds on fire” and he would attempt to recreate the dishes he’d eaten when he returned to the UK.

“I think there are quite a lot of musicians who cook to relax like me. Music gets stuck in your head and the best thing is to do something different. Cooking is another creative process with benefits that other people can enjoy.”

He’s currently in talks with a TV production company about fronting a cookery show with chef Barry Vera.

“It’s going to be a mix of rock, food, travel and cars – Top Gear crossed with the Hairy Bikers!”

Meanwhile, Young is enjoying watching his three children – Levi, 26, Layla, 19 and Grady, 17 – grow up and carve their own paths.

“Levi has started listening to my records and understands what it was all about and the other two are starting to become more inquisitive about my work but I’m not sure any of them really believe what their dad got up to!”

*Paul Young appears with Los Pacaminos at the Pavilion Theatre, Union Place, Worthing, on Friday, September 6. Visit www.worthingtheatres.co.uk.