Anyone reading this from abroad maybe wondering, 'who the f***k was Clarissa Dickson Wright'? Well, let me tell you she was all that is good about being English.
Well spoken ,well read, educated, great sense of humour, totally non politically correct (Not getting involved in all that rubbish - her words), a top cook, a lover of all things that are bad for you and many years sober after tearing the arse out of a £3million inheritance in heavy alcoholism.
She was a trained and successful barrister until losing her job due to her alcoholism. Then, after drinking her way through a fortune, she reinvented herself as a TV chef, being spotted working as a cook for a Private dining club. She joined forces with another completely batty old girl and became a TV sensation as 'The Two Fat Ladies'.
I was in love with those two portly wenches. They were from a by gone era. Men were men in their breeches, or little boys and women were women. They insisted on cooking with tremendous amounts of lard, goose, fat, butter, sugar and fatty meat. healthy option was not for them. Proper old school grub. They didn't bother about fancy portions, new style fads. Fuck that, those two beauties were proper old school English and we loved it.
They had tremendous voices, a great sense of humour and didn't take anything too seriously. Least of all themselves. They loved a drink and a smoke, had beautifully manicured nails and I for one remember developing a really odd fixation of seeing close ups of their beautifully manicured painted nails, fat fingers kneading raw minced meat in bowls. Granted it was odd, but I would like to think they would have appreciated such insanity.
Before the age of women's lib, gender equality and feminism, Clarissa, with her old school values, became a successful woman in law followed by television and then writing. A true modern woman with old fashioned views.
She, for me, was a Great Briton and the world is a much less colourful place without her. She wiped the floor with some of the humourless feminists you get today. She didn't worry about that, she just relied on her force of spirit, talent and goose fat roasters to get her to the top.
The Inside Job salutes her. Many years sober and a lover of life. One can only marvel and vow to have just a little of her joy De Vivre. RIP girls, you were real beauties.....
Together We Are Stronger
Nicholas Evans
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