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English celebrity cook, television personality, writer, businesswoman, and barrister (1947–2014) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.
Clarissa Dickson Wright | |
|---|---|
Dickson Wright at a fundraising dinner for the Countryside Alliance in 2011 | |
| Lord Rector of the University of Aberdeen | |
| In office 1998–2004 | |
| Preceded by | Allan Macartney |
| Succeeded by | Robin Harper |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 24 June 1947 St John's Wood, London, England |
| Died | 15 March 2014 (aged 66) Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Alma mater | University College London |
| Occupation | Television personality, celebrity cook, actress, businesswoman, author, barrister |
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]
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