Clarissa Theresa Philomena Aileen Mary Josephine Agnes Elsie Trilby Louise Esmerelda Johnston Dickson Wright [1] (24 June 1947 –15 March 2014) was an English celebrity cook,television personality,writer,businesswoman,and former barrister. [2] She was best known as one of the Two Fat Ladies ,with Jennifer Paterson,in the television cooking programme from 1996 to 1999. She was an accredited cricket umpire and one of only two women to become a Guild Butcher.
Dickson Wright was born in St John's Wood,London, [3] the youngest of four children. [4] [5] Her father,Arthur Dickson Wright, [6] [7] was a surgeon to the Royal Family who had served with the Colonial Service at Singapore, [8] and her mother,Aileen Mary (Molly) Bath, [3] was from "a well known and respected Singapore family". [9] [2] She said her father was an alcoholic who subjected his wife and children to verbal and physical abuse. [10]
At the age of 11,Wright was sent to the Convent of the Sacred Heart,an independent school for girls in the coastal town of Hove in Sussex,and then to the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Woldingham. After school,Wright studied for a law degree at University College London,and undertook her pupillage to become a barrister at Gray's Inn. [2] [11]
Dickson Wright was called to the bar in 1970. [2] She later claimed (although she turned 23 that year) that this occurred when she was aged 21,and that she was the youngest woman ever to be called to the bar. [12] [13] After her mother died of a heart attack in 1975,she inherited a considerable sum of money,which by her own account she squandered over the next eight years. Her mother's death,combined a year later with that of her father,who spent his final years aphasic and requiring the use of a wheelchair after a stroke, [9] [8] left her in a deep depression,and she drank heavily for the following 12 years. [11]
In 1979,Dickson Wright took control of the food at a drinking club in St James's Place in London. While there she met a fellow alcoholic named Clive (whose surname she never revealed); [2] they had a relationship until his death in 1982 from kidney failure at the age of 40. [2] Shortly thereafter she was disbarred [12] for practising without chambers. [14] Dickson Wright said that,during her alcoholic years,she had sex with an MP behind the Speaker's chair in the House of Commons. [2]
In the early 1980s,she was homeless and staying with friends. [15] For two years she was cook-housekeeper for a family in Sussex until she was sacked for her alcohol-induced behaviour. [16] After being charged with drink-driving,Dickson Wright started to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings,counselling,and a detox centre. [2] She attended the Promis Recovery Centre at Nonington. [14] In her 2009 book Rifling Through My Drawers she expressed a belief in reincarnation. She was a keen supporter of hunting. [17] [18]
BBC2 commissioned a series of Two Fat Ladies . Four series were made and shown around the world. Paterson died in 1999 midway through the fourth series. [19]
Two Fat Ladies ended in 1999 after Paterson's death. Dickson Wright appeared with Sir Johnny Scott in Clarissa and the Countryman from 2000 to 2003 and played the gamekeeper in the sitcom Absolutely Fabulous in 2003. [11] In 2004 she closed her Edinburgh cookery book shop due to bankruptcy and lost the contract to run a tearoom at Lennoxlove,the seat of the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon. [20] In 2005,Dickson Wright took part in the BBC reality television show Art School.
Dickson Wright was elected as Rector of the University of Aberdeen in November 1998,the university's first female rector. [11] [21] Her autobiography,Spilling the Beans,was published in September 2007. In 2008,she presented a one-off documentary for BBC Four,Clarissa and the King's Cookbook,where she makes recipes from a cookbook dating to the reign of Richard II. [22]
Along with racehorse trainer Sir Mark Prescott,Dickson Wright was charged with hare coursing with dogs in North Yorkshire in March 2007 under a private prosecution lodged by the International Fund for Animal Welfare under the Hunting Act 2004. [23] [24] [25] On 1 September 2009,she and Prescott pleaded guilty and received an absolute discharge at Scarborough Magistrates' Court. They said that they were invited to the event by the Yorkshire Greyhound Field Trialling Club,which told the court that it believed it was running a legal event by using muzzled dogs. [24]
In October 2012,Dickson Wright appeared on Fieldsports Britain to discuss badgers and their nutritional value,saying:"There's going to be a cull,so rather than just throw them in the landfill site,why not eat them?" [26] In November 2012,she presented a short BBC4 TV series on the history of the British breakfast,lunch and dinner. She was a supporter of the Conservative Party [27] [28] and lived in Inveresk,Scotland. [29]
In her later years,Wright was known for her criticism and opposition to anti-hunting groups and vegetarianism. [30] She supported hare coursing and a diet of red meat,butter and cream. [30]
Dickson Wright died in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary on 15 March 2014,aged 66,from pneumonia relating to an undisclosed illness. [18] [31] [32]
Her funeral mass was held in Edinburgh at St Mary's Cathedral on 7 April,after which she was cremated. [33]
Cookery books:
Memoirs:
Miscellaneous:
SERIES:
GUEST APPEARANCES:
2008 BA/Nielsen BookData Author of the Year Award.
The Two Fat Ladies DVD set contains a 40-minute BBC tribute to Paterson that aired in 2004. The DVD box set was released in the United States of America in July 2008. The Acorn Media release contains all 24 episodes across four discs. The show had been released in Britain as a Region 2 DVD set.
Her A History of English Food was described by The Independent as "richly informative" and "surely destined for classic status". The reviewer noted that she had seen badger hams on the bar in the West Country pubs of her childhood,and that a tripe seller in Dewsbury market sold "nine different varieties of tripe,including penis and udder (which is remarkably like pease pudding)." [36]
Bubble and squeak is an English dish made from cooked potatoes and cabbage,mixed together and fried. The food writer Howard Hillman classes it as one of the "great peasant dishes of the world". The dish has been known since at least the 18th century,and in its early versions it contained cooked beef;by the mid-20th century the two vegetables had become the principal ingredients.
Alan Fred Titchmarsh is an English gardener and broadcaster. After working as a professional gardener and a gardening journalist,he became a writer,and a radio and television presenter.
Linda Helen Smith was an English comedian and comedy writer. She appeared regularly on Radio 4 panel games,and was voted "Wittiest Living Person" by listeners in 2002. From 2004 to 2006 she was head of the British Humanist Association.
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Anglo-Indian cuisine is the cuisine that developed during the British Raj in India. The cuisine introduced dishes such as curry,chutney,kedgeree,mulligatawny and pish pash to English palates.
Inveresk is a village in East Lothian,Scotland situated 5⁄8 mi (1 km) to the south of Musselburgh. It has been designated a conservation area since 1969. It is situated on slightly elevated ground on the north bank of a loop of the River Esk. This ridge of ground,20 to 25 metres above sea level,was used by the Romans as the location for Inveresk Roman Fort in the 2nd century AD.
Jenny Eclair is an English comedian,novelist,and actress,best known for her roles in Grumpy Old Women between 2004 and 2007 and in Loose Women in 2011 and 2012.
Jennifer Mary Paterson was a British celebrity cook,author,actress and television personality who appeared on the television programme Two Fat Ladies (1996–1999) with Clarissa Dickson Wright. Prior to this,she wrote a cookery column both for The Spectator and for The Oldie.
One Man and His Dog is a BBC television series in the United Kingdom featuring sheepdog trials,originally presented by Phil Drabble,with commentary by Eric Halsall and,later,by Ray Ollerenshaw. It was first aired on 17 February 1976 and continues today as a special annual edition of Countryfile. In 1994,Robin Page replaced Drabble as the main presenter. Gus Dermody took over as commentator until 2012.
Two Fat Ladies was a British cooking programme starring Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright. It originally ran for four series –twenty-four episodes –from 9 October 1996 to 28 September 1999,being produced by Optomen Television for the BBC. Since then,the show has been repeated frequently on the Food Network and Cooking Channel in the US and on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. In the UK,the show has been transmitted many times on the satellite channel Good Food.
Patricia Llewellyn was a British television producer and managing director of the television production company,Optomen,which in 2010 became part of the All3Media group.
Mikyla Dodd is an English actress who is most famous for playing the role of Chloe Bruce in the Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks from 2000 until 2004.
MasterChef is a British competitive cooking reality show produced by Endemol Shine UK and Banijay and broadcast in 60 countries around the world. The show initially ran from 1990 to 2001 and was revived in 2005 as MasterChef Goes Large. The revival featured a new format devised by Franc Roddam and John Silver,with Karen Ross producing. In 2008,the name was changed back to MasterChef but the format remained unchanged.
Miranda Katherine Hart Dyke is an English actress,comedian and writer. She has won three Royal Television Society awards,four British Comedy Awards and four BAFTA nominations for her self-driven semi-autobiographical BBC sitcom Miranda (2009–2015),which is based on her earlier BBC Radio 2 series Miranda Hart's Joke Shop (2008). Hart appeared as Camilla "Chummy" Fortescue-Cholmondeley-Browne in the BBC drama series Call the Midwife (2012–2015) and made her Hollywood debut in the action comedy film Spy (2015).
Richard Corrigan is an Irish chef. He serves as the chef/patron of Corrigan's Bar &Restaurant Mayfair,Bentley's Oyster Bar and Grill,Daffodil Mulligan Restaurant &Gibney's Bar in London,Virginia Park Lodge and adjoining pub the Deerpark Inn in Virginia,County Cavan,and most recently The Portrait Restaurant,located on the top floor of the National Portrait Gallery,London.
Spilling the Beans is an autobiography written by Clarissa Dickson Wright and first published in 2007.
Queer street is a colloquial term referring to a person being in some difficulty,most commonly financial. It is often associated with Carey Street,where London's bankruptcy courts were once located.
Flamiche is a French savoury pastry,originating in the north-west France. It dates to medieval times and originally was a kind of galette,but in its modern version is a tart made with leeks and cream.
A History of English Food is a 2011 non-fiction book,a history of English cuisine arranged by period from the Middle Ages to the end of the twentieth century,written by the celebrity cook Clarissa Dickson Wright and published in London by Random House. Each period is treated in turn with a chapter. The text combines history,recipes,and anecdotes,and is illustrated with 32 pages of colour plates.