Two Fat Ladies

Clarissa Dickson Wright & Jennifer Paterson
Two large characters and a beautiful motorbike

On the day I posted my last blog the death of Clarissa Dickson Wright was announced. She died aged 66 on the 15th March in Edinburgh's Royal Infirmary. A former barrister (the youngest person to be called to the bar at the time), a business women, a cook-housekeeper, a writer, an accredited cricket umpire and not least a larger than life television celebrity. She is probably best remembered as the less zany of the Two Fat Ladies.

Around 1994 a British television producer by the name of Patricia Llewellyn brought together Clarissa Dickson Wright and, arguably, the even more eccentric Jennifer Paterson to make a pilot programme. The pilot resulted in the BBC commissioning the first of three series of Two Fat Ladies. Sadly Jennifer Paterson died on the 10th August 1999, halfway through the filming of a fourth series.

Two Fat Ladies was, and still is, compulsive viewing but it shouldn't be...

First of all the characters.

Clarissa Dickson Wright or to give her her full name Clarissa Theresa Philomena Aileen Mary Josephine Agnes Elsie Trilby Louise Esmerelda Dickson Wright was born into a wealthy family. She grew up in a large house staffed with several servants. Her father was a surgeon to the Royal Family and apparently, an abusive alcoholic.

At the age of 11 she was sent off to boarding school, after which she studied law and was called to the Bar at the age of 21. An unfortunate term as it turned out. Following the death of her mother, and her father a few years later, she suffered from depression and turned to drink. Her mother left her £2.8 million, her father left her nothing. By the age of 40 she had blown it all on “yachts in the Caribbean, yachts in the Aegean, aeroplanes to the races – and drink”. She once conceded “If I’d had another £100,000, I’d have been dead.”

12 years on the booze took it's toll. Disbarred, homeless, sacked as a cook/housekeeper because of her alcohol induced behaviour, and being charged with driving while under the influence she eventually attended Alcoholics Anonymous and a detox centre. After sorting her problems out she worked first in Books For Cooks, a shop and café in Portobello Road and then Cooks Book Shop in Edinburgh. It was here that Patricia Llewellyn approached her about making a cookery programme.

Jennifer Mary Paterson was born in 1928 in Kensington, but as she liked to point out was conceived in China. The Paterson family returned to England in the early 1930's and Jennifer attended the convent of the Assumption at Ramsgate. Here, she once noted, "the food was exceptionally good", unfortunately her behaviour was not. Her disruptive behaviour resulted in her being made at one stage to eat her meals in isolation behind a screen. She was eventually expelled, so that, in the words of the Reverend Mother “the school might calm down".

Despite being seriously impoverished for most of her life Jennifer Paterson was a true party animal. The parties she threw were renowned. Not least her 45th birthday party, at which she greeted the raiding police with the cry "Here are the fuzz! Have some fizz!"

At one time a matron at a girls' boarding school near Reading and later ending up as a cook for the Ugandan legation in London, Jennifer eventually became a food writer for The Spectator and for several years provided weekly lunches for special guests, one of which was the Prince of Wales. On this occasion she was told "Don't do anything controversial", she had already "Coochie-coochie-coo!"ed the laugh a minute Enoch Powell, ruffling his hair just as he was about to hold forth on one of his most solemn themes. Apart from serving raw halibut and guinea fowl on a bed of finely sliced trinity and addressing the heir to the throne as "Your Majesty" she seems for once to have done as she was told.

For me there was a third character in the Two Fat Ladies, the motorcycle and sidecar. A beautiful Triumph Thunderbird with a Watsonian GP-700 "doublewide" sidecar attached. This combination had the registration N88 TFL. Two fat ladies 88 never was the most politically correct of bingo calls but neither was the show. The motorcycle driven by Jennifer and with a leather flying helmet wearing Clarissa wedged in the sidecar summed up wonderfully the eccentricity of the pair and the programme.

The programme

Two large, loud, upper class, opinionated women, driving around the country in a motorcycle and sidecar, cooking gentleman's club food using lard and beef dripping in grand but often antiquated kitchens. That's never going to work!

What do I know, it was tremendously popular, as Nicholas Parsons would say “not only in this country but throughout the world”. A worldwide audience of about 70 million according to some estimates.

The programme's theme song was sung by the two fat ladies themselves. Jennifer Paterson was also prone to bursting into song mid-programme. Apparently she was a fine baritone before her voice was roughened by two packets of Woodbines a day.

The food was hardly everyday fare and neither were the locations of the kitchens. Partridge with cabbage, Duntreath roast grouse and Jennifer's Rabbit with anchovies and capers prepared in the kitchens of Lennoxlove House. Gambas in gabardines and Portuguese cod cakes at the Brazilian Embassy and for a troupe of Scouts in the Kielder Forest, Onion Soup with Stilton, Muttachar and Jennifer's Shooters sandwich.

What was compulsive viewing, for me, was the interaction between the two ladies. Clarissa Dickson Wright's reminiscing about her drunken relations and her appreciation of men's legs and Jennifer's witty one liners. Once while violently wielding a cleaver and demonstrating the best way to dispatch a lobster she advised the faint-hearted, 'If you don't want to know the score, look away now'.

I have read that the pair did not get along off screen and whether that was the case or not is of no consequence. What was important was the often unscripted mischievous and sometime slightly edgy banter between the two. One thing they both had in common was their intolerance of vegetarians.

Each episode came to a close with the two 'chilling out' while their dishes were consumed in some grand dinning hall or marque. Jennifer with her cigarette and glass of wine or G&T or something of the kind and Clarissa notably without.

The two fat ladies are sadly no longer with us.  Patricia Llewellyn went on to inflict a certain Essex boy on us, but thankfully he was never truly naked. The motorbike and sidecar was bought by a private collector at auction for £8,500, the new owner also taking home the N88 TFL personalised number plate. The end of a short but truly unique period in the history of cookery programmes.

For me Jennifer Paterson would have made my perfect aunt! She was similar to my great auntie Edith who was, in the true spirit of things, nearly as wide as she was tall, although being a Methodist she didn't drink - except for medicinal purposes of course!