Fanny and Johnnie Cradock - The Pioneer TV Cookery Experts

I've recently had a lot to say about the therapeutic effect of laughter. A few days ago I wrote about the memorable occasions on radio and television when performers like Peter Cook and Dudley Moore have been convulsed with fits of uncontrollable laughter. Many of these corpsing attacks have been triggered by unintentional double entendres. One of these oft-repeated howlers relates to my friendFanny Cradock. At this point I've got to be very careful, because while I'm glad to be able to honour Fanny's memory, I don't want to be accused of name dropping. This I've always regarded as a form of self aggrandisement, rather like the highbrow pedants who litter their speech with Latin or German quotations, even though they know they'll be never be understood by most of their audience.These thoughts came to mind recently when I re-read Time to Remember, the autobiography of Johnny and Fanny Cradock, the Bon Viveur cookery team. Here was the flamboyant Fanny to a tee, name dropping as outrageously as she did throughout her life. Every page of these memoirs is filled with recollections of her adventures with 'Willy', 'Monty' and 'Normie', whom lesser mortals know as Somerset Maugham, Sir Compton MacKenzie and Sir Norman Hartnell. Here were accounts of her epicurean adventures around the globe. A meal she had on the terrace of Cipriani's in Venice, lingering over a desert of Paste à l'Armagnac teamed with a priceless bottle of Chateau d'Yquem 1926. But for me the most poignant parts of the book are those which relate to events I actually shared. These include the televised show at the Albert Hall, when a packed house of 7,000 fans looked down on a cookery demonstration given in a flood-lit boxing ring decked out to look like a typical French bistro. During the morning rehearsals Fanny lost her voice, through a mixture of nerves and abuse of her voice as she barked out increasingly frantic instructions to her team of helpers. Then, a few hours before the performance, she was finally overcome by a fit of panic and ran out of the hall, hailing a taxi to take her to a church where she hoped to find escape from her mental agony. She was rescued by the ever-dependable Johnny, who far from being a drunken wimp, as he was often portrayed by the media, was in fact the quiet strength of the partnership.Later the book recounts the splendid New Year's Eve parties that Johnny and Fanny gave for eighty or more friends and A-list celebrities at their delightful Georgian Dower House in Hertfordshire. On these splendid occasions the driveway would be lit with flaming torches. Guests, on entering the festively decorated house, would be greeted by carols sung by a choir standing one above the other on the steps of the foyer's spiral staircase. At one of these parties Fanny introduced me to an attractive young fellow who had just come down from university where he had been President of the Oxford Union. This man, she assured me, would one day be Prime Minister of Great Britain. His name was Gyles Brandreth, who has certainly had an illustrious career but seems unlikely now to take over the leadership of the country. All this, of course, is idle gossip, but it does give me an excuse to recall the famous gaffe made by David Coleman, when he was introducing Match of the Day immediately after the Cradock's had been demonstrating the making of cakes and pastries. To provide a bridging link between tarts and tackles Coleman came out with the classic comment: 'And for those of you who watched the last programme. I hope all your doughnuts will turn out like Fanny's'. dr seuss cat in hat book