Fanny Cradock

Fanny Cradock
Cradock in 1976
Born	Phyllis Nan Sortain Pechey (1909-02-26)26 February 1909 Leytonstone, Essex, England
Died	27 December 1994(1994-12-27) (aged 85) Hailsham, East Sussex, England
Occupation(s)	Television cook, novelist and food critic
Spouses	Sidney A. Vernon Evans (1926–1927; his death) Arthur W. Chapman (1928–?; separated) Gregory Holden-Dye (1939–?; annulled) Johnnie Cradock (1977–1987; his death)
Children	2
Parent(s)	Archibald Thomas Pechey and Bijou Sortain Hancock

Phyllis Nan Sortain "Primrose" Pechey (26 February 1909 – 27 December 1994), better known as Fanny Cradock, was an English restaurant critic, television cook and writer frequently appearing on television, at cookery demonstrations and in print with Major Johnnie Cradock who played the part of a slightly bumbling hen-pecked husband.

Early life

Cradock's family background was one of respectable middle-class trade; her ancestors included the Pecheys (corn merchants and churchmen), the Vallentines (distillers) and the Hulberts (cabinet makers). She was the daughter of the novelist and lyricist Archibald Thomas Pechey and Bijou Sortain Hancock.

Cradock was born at her maternal grandparents' house, 33 Fairlop Road, Leytonstone. The birth was formally registered in London, in the district of West Ham.

As a child, Cradock lived with her family at Fairlop Road, with her maternal grandparents. A plaque (with her name misspelled) can be found at Fairwood Court, Fairlop Road, London E11: "Fanny Craddock 1909–1994. On this site until 1930 stood a house called Apthorp, birthplace of the famous TV cookery expert Fanny Craddock; born Phyllis Pechey."

Her birthplace was named after Apthorp Villa, in Weston, Somerset, where her grandfather Charles Hancock had been born. Cradock's parents did not manage their money well; her mother, Bijou, spent extravagantly, and her father, Archibald, had sizeable gambling debts, many run up in Nice. In attempting to keep their creditors at bay, the family moved around the country, going to Herne Bay in Kent, then to Swanage in Dorset and on to Bournemouth in Dorset, where Archibald's brother, Richard Francis Pechey (1872–1963), had become the Vicar of Holy Trinity Church in 1912. Whilst in Bournemouth the 15-year-old Fanny attended Bournemouth High School (now Talbot Heath School).

Archibald moved the family again to Wroxham in Norfolk, c. 1927, where his creditors caught up with him and by 1930 he was appearing in Norfolk's bankruptcy court faced with debts of £3,500. Cradock began the next ten years of her life in London living in destitution, selling cleaning products door to door. She then worked in a dressmaking shop.

Culinary career

Cradock's fortunes began to change when she started work at various restaurants and was introduced to the works of Auguste Escoffier. She later wrote passionately about the change from service à la française to service à la russe and hailed Escoffier as a saviour of British cooking.

Fanny and Johnnie Cradock began writing a column under the pen name of "Bon Viveur" which appeared in The Daily Telegraph from 1950 to 1955. This sparked a theatre career, with the pair turning theatres into restaurants. Cradock would cook vast dishes that were served to the audience. They became known for their roast turkey, complete with stuffed head, tail feathers and wings. Complete with French accents, their act was one of a drunken hen-pecked husband and a domineering wife. At this time, they were known as Major and Mrs Cradock. She also wrote books under the names Frances Dale, Bon Viveur, Susan Leigh and Phyllis Cradock.

TV personality

Main article: Works of Fanny Cradock

In 1955 Cradock recorded a pilot for what became a very successful BBC television series on cookery. Each year the BBC published a booklet giving a detailed account of every recipe Fanny demonstrated, allowing her to frequently say in later years, "You'll find that recipe in the booklet, so I won't show you now." Fanny advocated bringing Escoffier-standard food into the British home and gave every recipe a French name. Her food looked extravagant, but was generally cost-effective, and Fanny seemed to care about her audience. Her catchphrases included "This won't break you", "This is perfectly economical", and "This won't stretch your purse". When presenting her Christmas cake recipe she once justified the cost of ingredients, saying "But on the other hand, we do want one piece of decent cake in the year."

As time went by, however, her food began to seem outdated, with her love of the piping bag and vegetable dyes. As she grew older, she applied more and more make-up and wore vast chiffon ballgowns on screen. Cradock had always included relatives and friends in her television shows. Johnnie suffered a minor heart attack in the early 1970s and was replaced with the daughter of a friend, Jayne. Another assistant was Sarah, and there was a series of young men who didn't last very long. Throughout her television career the Cradocks also worked for the British Gas Council, appearing at trade shows such as the Ideal Home Exhibition and making many "infomercials," instructing cooks, usually newlywed women, on how to use gas cookers for basic dishes. Despite the BBC's ban on advertising, Cradock used only gas stoves in her television shows and often stated that she "hated" electric stoves and ovens.

Her series Fanny Cradock Cooks for Christmas is the only one of several she made to have survived in the TV archives and to have been repeated in recent years, on the UK digital television channels BBC4, Good Food and Food Network UK, usually in the run-up to Christmas. Good Food also occasionally show Fanny Cradock Invites You to a Cheese and Wine Party, one of a few surviving stand-alone episodes from other series.

TELEVISION

Cradock appeared in twenty-four television series between 1955 and 1975.

Series

• 1955 Kitchen Magic BBC
• 1955 Fanny's Kitchen (Series 1) (13 episodes, 5 October 1955 to 28 December 1956) ITV
• 1956 Chez Bon Viveur (13 episodes, 30 April to 23 July 1956) ITV
• 1957 Fanny's Kitchen (Series 2) (13 episodes, 10 January to 4 April 1957) ITV
• 1959 Lucky Dip: The Junior Newspaper Series 1 (13 episodes, 10 February to 10 May 1959) ITV
• 1959 The Cradocks Series 1 (25 September to 18 December 1959) ITV
• 1960 Lucky Dip: The Junior Newspaper Series 2 (13 episodes, 5 January to 29 March 1960) ITV
• 1960 Late Extra (11 episodes, 13 April to 22 June 1960) ITV
• 1961 Fanny's Kitchen (Series 3) (13 episodes, 17 February to 12 May 1961) ITV
• 1961-63 Tuesday Rendezvous ITV
• 1961 Fanny's Kitchen (Series 4) (13 episodes, 22 February to 17 May 1962) ITV
• 1962 The Cradocks (4 episodes, 25 September to 2 October 1962) ITV
• 1962 Beginning to Cook (6 episodes, 11 January to 15 February 1963) BBC
• 1963 Kitchen Party (13 episodes, 30 September to 24 December 1963, repeated in 1964 and again in 1965) BBC
• 1963 Learning to Cook (6 episodes, 8 December 1963 to 12 January 1964) BBC
• 1965 Home Cooking (14 episodes, 25 April to 27 June 1965) BBC
• 1966 Adventurous Cooking (13 episodes, 17 April to 10 July 1966) BBC
• 1967 Problem Cooking (13 episodes, 2 March to 25 May 1967) BBC
• 1968 Ten Classic Dishes (10 episodes, January to March 1968, repeated 7 September to 7 December 1969) BBC
• 1968 Fanny Cradock: Colourful Cookery (13 episodes, 1 October to 24 December 1968) BBC
• 1969 Giving A Dinner Party (13 episodes, 4 July to 26 September 1969) BBC
• 1970 Fanny Cradock Invites.... (13 episodes, 22 July to 21 October 1970) BBC (Repeated in 1973)
• 1972 Nationwide: Fanny Cradock Cooks Nationwide Into Europe3 (13 segments of 13 episodes, 8 March to 31 May 1972) BBC
• 1975 Fanny Cradock Cooks For Christmas (5 episodes, 15 to 19 December 1975) BBC

GUEST APPEARANCES AND SPECIALS

• Television Tea Party (26 September 1955)
• Summer Magazine (20 July 1956)
• Talking About Wine (11 August 1956)
• Bon Viveur' TV Christmas Part 1 (18 October 1956)
• Bon Viveur' TV Christmas Part 2 (November 1956)
• Bon Viveur - Gala Christmas Dinner (11 December 1956) [23] (Special, 11 December 1956)
• Bon Viveur' TV Christmas Part 3 (12 December 1956)
• It's The Tops (12 appearances between 25 April to 20 September 1958)
• These Foolish Things (6 June, 11 July, 3 August, 24 August 1958)
• Mainly For Women - Bon Viveur Cookery Club[24] ITV (11, 25 September 1958)
• Success Story (16 March 1959)
• Christmas Cookery in the Round (30 November 1959; 7 December 1959)
• Christmas Special: Lucky Dip Newspaper (22 December 1959)
• Picnics (2 episodes, 9 & 16 April 1960)
• Home for the Day (29 May, 18 December 1960; 21 October 1962; 13 January, 7 April 1963; 4 July, 27 December 1965)
• Alice Through the Looking Box (25 December 1960) As The Duchess
• It's the Tops (3 episodes between 15 September to 15 December 1961)
• In My View (2 episodes, 7 and 21 November 1961)
• Home Entertaiment (14 November 1961)
• Shopping for You (15 November 1961)
• Australian Party (1 December 1961)
• Open House (4 December 1961)
• Christmas is Coming (13 December 1961)
• Holidays Ahead (3 episodes between 27 December 1961 to 30 January 1962)
• Ideal Home (6 March 1962)
• Home at One-Thirty (17 April, 5 June 1962)
• Monitor: Julian Bream (3 June 1962)
• Adventures in Eating (29 August 1962)
• Living Today [25] ( 25 September, 23 October, 20 November 1962; 15 January, 26 February, 15 March, 9, 23 April, 7 May, 5 June 1963)
• Ideal Home Exhibition (5 March 1963)
• World in Action (29 June 1965)
• The Eamonn Andrews Show (26 December 1965)
• Late Night Lineup (April 1966)
• The Frost Report: Food & Drink (2 June 1966)
• Chan Canasta (13 June 1966)
• Juke Box Jury (17 September 1966)
• Call My Bluff (23 October 1966)
• Christmas Cooking[26] (Special, 1 December 1966)
• A Bride's First Dinner (1967)
• Doddy's Music Box (10 February 1968)
• The Great Fish Muddle (24 September 1968)
• Pick of the Year (31 December 1968)
• Whatever Next?" (24 May 1969) as Lady MacBeth
• Know Your Onions (12, 19 November 1969)
• Score with the Scaffold (28 August 1970)
• Ev (20 March 1971)
• Horizon: Taste of Foods to Come (24 May 1971)
• Larry Grayson's Generation Game" (30 October 1971)
• Tarbuck's Luck (15 April 1972)
• Call My Bluff (17 January 1972, 24 January 1972)
• Tarbuck's Luck (15 April 1972)
• Parkinson (10 June 1972)
• Larry Grayson's Generation Game" (25 December 1973)
• What's My Line? (26 January 1974)
• Password (1 April 1974, 20 August 1974)
• Will the Real Fanny Cradock Please Stand Up? (2 July 1975)
• Celebrity Squares (31 January 1976)
• The Big Time: 3: Gwen Troake 's Banquet (11 November 1976)
• The Big Time (7 December 1976)
• Those Wonderful TV Times (13 August 1978)
• Pebble Mill at One (11 December 1981)
• Sin on Saturday (28 August 1982)
• TV AM (1985)
• Wogan (11 August 1986)
• Breakfast Time (12 August 1986)
• Open Air (4 November 1986)
• The Last Resort (3 April 1987)

Fanny Cradock
Cradock in 1976
Born	Phyllis Nan Sortain Pechey (1909-02-26)26 February 1909 Leytonstone, Essex, England
Died	27 December 1994(1994-12-27) (aged 85) Hailsham, East Sussex, England
Occupation(s)	Television cook, novelist and food critic
Spouses	Sidney A. Vernon Evans (1926–1927; his death) Arthur W. Chapman (1928–?; separated) Gregory Holden-Dye (1939–?; annulled) Johnnie Cradock (1977–1987; his death)
Children	2
Parent(s)	Archibald Thomas Pechey and Bijou Sortain Hancock

Phyllis Nan Sortain "Primrose" Pechey (26 February 1909 – 27 December 1994), better known as Fanny Cradock, was an English restaurant critic, television cook and writer frequently appearing on television, at cookery demonstrations and in print with Major Johnnie Cradock who played the part of a slightly bumbling hen-pecked husband.

Early life

Cradock's family background was one of respectable middle-class trade; her ancestors included the Pecheys (corn merchants and churchmen), the Vallentines (distillers) and the Hulberts (cabinet makers). She was the daughter of the novelist and lyricist Archibald Thomas Pechey and Bijou Sortain Hancock.

Cradock was born at her maternal grandparents' house, 33 Fairlop Road, Leytonstone. The birth was formally registered in London, in the district of West Ham.

As a child, Cradock lived with her family at Fairlop Road, with her maternal grandparents. A plaque (with her name misspelled) can be found at Fairwood Court, Fairlop Road, London E11: "Fanny Craddock 1909–1994. On this site until 1930 stood a house called Apthorp, birthplace of the famous TV cookery expert Fanny Craddock; born Phyllis Pechey."

Her birthplace was named after Apthorp Villa, in Weston, Somerset, where her grandfather Charles Hancock had been born. Cradock's parents did not manage their money well; her mother, Bijou, spent extravagantly, and her father, Archibald, had sizeable gambling debts, many run up in Nice. In attempting to keep their creditors at bay, the family moved around the country, going to Herne Bay in Kent, then to Swanage in Dorset and on to Bournemouth in Dorset, where Archibald's brother, Richard Francis Pechey (1872–1963), had become the Vicar of Holy Trinity Church in 1912. Whilst in Bournemouth the 15-year-old Fanny attended Bournemouth High School (now Talbot Heath School).

Archibald moved the family again to Wroxham in Norfolk, c. 1927, where his creditors caught up with him and by 1930 he was appearing in Norfolk's bankruptcy court faced with debts of £3,500. Cradock began the next ten years of her life in London living in destitution, selling cleaning products door to door. She then worked in a dressmaking shop.

Culinary career

Cradock's fortunes began to change when she started work at various restaurants and was introduced to the works of Auguste Escoffier. She later wrote passionately about the change from service à la française to service à la russe and hailed Escoffier as a saviour of British cooking.

Fanny and Johnnie Cradock began writing a column under the pen name of "Bon Viveur" which appeared in The Daily Telegraph from 1950 to 1955. This sparked a theatre career, with the pair turning theatres into restaurants. Cradock would cook vast dishes that were served to the audience. They became known for their roast turkey, complete with stuffed head, tail feathers and wings. Complete with French accents, their act was one of a drunken hen-pecked husband and a domineering wife. At this time, they were known as Major and Mrs Cradock. She also wrote books under the names Frances Dale, Bon Viveur, Susan Leigh and Phyllis Cradock.

TV personality

Main article: Works of Fanny Cradock

In 1955 Cradock recorded a pilot for what became a very successful BBC television series on cookery. Each year the BBC published a booklet giving a detailed account of every recipe Fanny demonstrated, allowing her to frequently say in later years, "You'll find that recipe in the booklet, so I won't show you now." Fanny advocated bringing Escoffier-standard food into the British home and gave every recipe a French name. Her food looked extravagant, but was generally cost-effective, and Fanny seemed to care about her audience. Her catchphrases included "This won't break you", "This is perfectly economical", and "This won't stretch your purse". When presenting her Christmas cake recipe she once justified the cost of ingredients, saying "But on the other hand, we do want one piece of decent cake in the year."

As time went by, however, her food began to seem outdated, with her love of the piping bag and vegetable dyes. As she grew older, she applied more and more make-up and wore vast chiffon ballgowns on screen. Cradock had always included relatives and friends in her television shows. Johnnie suffered a minor heart attack in the early 1970s and was replaced with the daughter of a friend, Jayne. Another assistant was Sarah, and there was a series of young men who didn't last very long. Throughout her television career the Cradocks also worked for the British Gas Council, appearing at trade shows such as the Ideal Home Exhibition and making many "infomercials," instructing cooks, usually newlywed women, on how to use gas cookers for basic dishes. Despite the BBC's ban on advertising, Cradock used only gas stoves in her television shows and often stated that she "hated" electric stoves and ovens.

Her series Fanny Cradock Cooks for Christmas is the only one of several she made to have survived in the TV archives and to have been repeated in recent years, on the UK digital television channels BBC4, Good Food and Food Network UK, usually in the run-up to Christmas. Good Food also occasionally show Fanny Cradock Invites You to a Cheese and Wine Party, one of a few surviving stand-alone episodes from other series.

TELEVISION

Cradock appeared in twenty-four television series between 1955 and 1975.

Series

• 1955 Kitchen Magic BBC
• 1955 Fanny's Kitchen (Series 1) (13 episodes, 5 October 1955 to 28 December 1956) ITV
• 1956 Chez Bon Viveur (13 episodes, 30 April to 23 July 1956) ITV
• 1957 Fanny's Kitchen (Series 2) (13 episodes, 10 January to 4 April 1957) ITV
• 1959 Lucky Dip: The Junior Newspaper Series 1 (13 episodes, 10 February to 10 May 1959) ITV
• 1959 The Cradocks Series 1 (25 September to 18 December 1959) ITV
• 1960 Lucky Dip: The Junior Newspaper Series 2 (13 episodes, 5 January to 29 March 1960) ITV
• 1960 Late Extra (11 episodes, 13 April to 22 June 1960) ITV
• 1961 Fanny's Kitchen (Series 3) (13 episodes, 17 February to 12 May 1961) ITV
• 1961-63 Tuesday Rendezvous ITV
• 1961 Fanny's Kitchen (Series 4) (13 episodes, 22 February to 17 May 1962) ITV
• 1962 The Cradocks (4 episodes, 25 September to 2 October 1962) ITV
• 1962 Beginning to Cook (6 episodes, 11 January to 15 February 1963) BBC
• 1963 Kitchen Party (13 episodes, 30 September to 24 December 1963, repeated in 1964 and again in 1965) BBC
• 1963 Learning to Cook (6 episodes, 8 December 1963 to 12 January 1964) BBC
• 1965 Home Cooking (14 episodes, 25 April to 27 June 1965) BBC
• 1966 Adventurous Cooking (13 episodes, 17 April to 10 July 1966) BBC
• 1967 Problem Cooking (13 episodes, 2 March to 25 May 1967) BBC
• 1968 Ten Classic Dishes (10 episodes, January to March 1968, repeated 7 September to 7 December 1969) BBC
• 1968 Fanny Cradock: Colourful Cookery (13 episodes, 1 October to 24 December 1968) BBC
• 1969 Giving A Dinner Party (13 episodes, 4 July to 26 September 1969) BBC
• 1970 Fanny Cradock Invites.... (13 episodes, 22 July to 21 October 1970) BBC (Repeated in 1973)
• 1972 Nationwide: Fanny Cradock Cooks Nationwide Into Europe3 (13 segments of 13 episodes, 8 March to 31 May 1972) BBC
• 1975 Fanny Cradock Cooks For Christmas (5 episodes, 15 to 19 December 1975) BBC

GUEST APPEARANCES AND SPECIALS

• Television Tea Party (26 September 1955)
• Summer Magazine (20 July 1956)
• Talking About Wine (11 August 1956)
• Bon Viveur' TV Christmas Part 1 (18 October 1956)
• Bon Viveur' TV Christmas Part 2 (November 1956)
• Bon Viveur - Gala Christmas Dinner (11 December 1956) [23] (Special, 11 December 1956)
• Bon Viveur' TV Christmas Part 3 (12 December 1956)
• It's The Tops (12 appearances between 25 April to 20 September 1958)
• These Foolish Things (6 June, 11 July, 3 August, 24 August 1958)
• Mainly For Women - Bon Viveur Cookery Club[24] ITV (11, 25 September 1958)
• Success Story (16 March 1959)
• Christmas Cookery in the Round (30 November 1959; 7 December 1959)
• Christmas Special: Lucky Dip Newspaper (22 December 1959)
• Picnics (2 episodes, 9 & 16 April 1960)
• Home for the Day (29 May, 18 December 1960; 21 October 1962; 13 January, 7 April 1963; 4 July, 27 December 1965)
• Alice Through the Looking Box (25 December 1960) As The Duchess
• It's the Tops (3 episodes between 15 September to 15 December 1961)
• In My View (2 episodes, 7 and 21 November 1961)
• Home Entertaiment (14 November 1961)
• Shopping for You (15 November 1961)
• Australian Party (1 December 1961)
• Open House (4 December 1961)
• Christmas is Coming (13 December 1961)
• Holidays Ahead (3 episodes between 27 December 1961 to 30 January 1962)
• Ideal Home (6 March 1962)
• Home at One-Thirty (17 April, 5 June 1962)
• Monitor: Julian Bream (3 June 1962)
• Adventures in Eating (29 August 1962)
• Living Today [25] ( 25 September, 23 October, 20 November 1962; 15 January, 26 February, 15 March, 9, 23 April, 7 May, 5 June 1963)
• Ideal Home Exhibition (5 March 1963)
• World in Action (29 June 1965)
• The Eamonn Andrews Show (26 December 1965)
• Late Night Lineup (April 1966)
• The Frost Report: Food & Drink (2 June 1966)
• Chan Canasta (13 June 1966)
• Juke Box Jury (17 September 1966)
• Call My Bluff (23 October 1966)
• Christmas Cooking[26] (Special, 1 December 1966)
• A Bride's First Dinner (1967)
• Doddy's Music Box (10 February 1968)
• The Great Fish Muddle (24 September 1968)
• Pick of the Year (31 December 1968)
• Whatever Next?" (24 May 1969) as Lady MacBeth
• Know Your Onions (12, 19 November 1969)
• Score with the Scaffold (28 August 1970)
• Ev (20 March 1971)
• Horizon: Taste of Foods to Come (24 May 1971)
• Larry Grayson's Generation Game" (30 October 1971)
• Tarbuck's Luck (15 April 1972)
• Call My Bluff (17 January 1972, 24 January 1972)
• Tarbuck's Luck (15 April 1972)
• Parkinson (10 June 1972)
• Larry Grayson's Generation Game" (25 December 1973)
• What's My Line? (26 January 1974)
• Password (1 April 1974, 20 August 1974)
• Will the Real Fanny Cradock Please Stand Up? (2 July 1975)
• Celebrity Squares (31 January 1976)
• The Big Time: 3: Gwen Troake 's Banquet (11 November 1976)
• The Big Time (7 December 1976)
• Those Wonderful TV Times (13 August 1978)
• Pebble Mill at One (11 December 1981)
• Sin on Saturday (28 August 1982)
• TV AM (1985)
• Wogan (11 August 1986)
• Breakfast Time (12 August 1986)
• Open Air (4 November 1986)
• The Last Resort (3 April 1987)

End of her television career

In 1976, Gwen Troake, a farmer’s wife from Devon, won the Cook of the Realm competition, leading to the BBC selecting her for its TV series The Big Time, where talented amateurs were given the opportunity to take part in a spectacular professional event. Troake was to organise a three-course Foyle's Literary Lunch at the Devonshire Hotel in honour of the former Prime Minister Edward Heath, with Earl Mountbatten of Burma and other dignitaries in attendance, and asked Fanny Cradock, by then a tax exile in Ireland, along with chef Eugene Kaufeler, actor and gourmet Robert Morley, nutritionist Magnus Pyke and many other experts Troake admired to advise her.

The result brought the end of Fanny Cradock's television career. Troake went through her menu of seafood cocktail, duckling with a lemon jelly-and-cornstarch fortified bramble sauce and coffee cream dessert with rum. Her idea was that with seafood, water fowl and rum, the meal had a nautical "theme," which would appeal to Mr Heath’s love of sailing and also be an appropriate salute to the former Admiral Mountbatten. Cradock, grimacing and acting as if on the verge of gagging, told Troake that her menu was far too rich and she would "never in a million years" serve a seafood cocktail before a duck. She appeared not to be familiar with the term "bramble," and when told it meant a blackberry, was horrified that it would be paired with a savoury duck, remonstrated that a sauce like that should be brushed on flan. She derisively declared that the jam in it was "too English" and that the English had never had a cuisine, erroneously claimed that "Yorkshire pudding came from Burgundy". While accepting that Troake's dessert was delicious, she insisted that it was not suitable, as it was "too sickly" served after the sweetly-sauced, rich duck, countering Troake's numerous objections with "Yes, dear, but now you're among professionals."

Fanny suggested that unless Troake were to serve salad and cheese afterward, as is done in France, then she should use small almond pastry barquettes filled with a palate-cleansing fruit sorbet with spun sugar sails - equally suitable for the naval theme. Troake kept insisting that she liked her signature coffee pudding with "nautical" rum in it, while Cradock appealed to her to think of her diners' taste buds and stomachs, and try to achieve a balance in her menu. Unfortunately, the replacement dessert was not executed properly, and Morley said he felt that Troake's original coffee pudding was perfect.

The public were incensed at her eye-rolling rudeness and condescension, and felt that Fanny Cradock had ruined Troake's special day. The Daily Telegraph wrote "Not since 1940 can the people of England have risen in such unified wrath....". Fanny wrote a letter of apology to Troake, but the BBC terminated her contract two weeks after the broadcast of the programme. She would never again present a cookery programme for the BBC. (Troake, by contrast, published A Country Cookbook of recipes the following year; it included the coffee cream dessert Cradock had vetoed.) Speaking about the incident on Room 101 in 1999, The Big Time's producer Esther Rantzen described Cradock as "hell on wheels", and that she had "reduced this poor little lady [Troake] to nothing".

Final years

Fanny and Johnnie Cradock spent their final years living at Bexhill on Sea, East Sussex. They became regulars on the chat show circuit, and also appeared on programmes such as The Generation Game and Blankety Blank. Fanny appeared alone on Wogan, Parkinson and TV-am. When she appeared on the television chat show Parkinson with Danny La Rue and it was revealed to her that La Rue was actually a female impersonator, she stormed off the set. Her final BBC appearance and her final television appearance was in early 1988 on Windmill presented by Chris Serle.

Personal life

Cradock married four times, twice bigamously. First she married Sidney A. Vernon Evans on 10 October 1926, she was 17, he was 22. Cradock married as "Phyllis Nan Primrose Pechey"; "Primrose Pechey" was a form passed down her father's side. Sidney Evans died in a plane crash on 4 February 1927, leaving her pregnant with their son Peter Vernon Evans, who was adopted by his grandparents. Thanks to Johnnie Cradock, Peter later became a sous-chef at the Dorchester Hotel.

By July of the following year Cradock had become pregnant again, and married the baby's father Arthur William Chapman on 23 July. For this marriage Cradock gave her name as "Phyllis Nan Sortain Vernon Evans."

The couple had a son Christopher, but their marriage lasted less than a year before they separated. Cradock left her son Christopher and husband Arthur for a new life in Central London. Christopher was brought up in Norfolk by his father, an aunt and grandmother, although he made contact with Fanny in his adult life. Arthur Chapman became a Catholic and so would not give Fanny the divorce she later requested, as it was against the teachings of the Catholic Church. He was given only a single line in Fanny's autobiography.

Cradock married again on 26 September 1939, as "Phyllis Nan Sortain Chapman"; her husband this time was Gregory Holden-Dye, a daredevil minor racing driver, driving Bentleys at Brooklands in Surrey. The marriage lasted only eight weeks, and produced no children, as she had soon met the love of her life Johnnie Cradock. Gregory's mother had expressed a low opinion of Fanny, and ended up as a loathsome character in Fanny's first novel Scorpion's Suicide. Cradock later concluded that as Arthur Chapman had not granted her a divorce, her marriage to Gregory was not lawful, and so never publicised it.

John Whitby Cradock was a major in the Royal Artillery who was already married with four children. He soon left his wife, Ethel, and children to be with Fanny. Unable to marry Johnnie, because of Arthur's refusal to get divorced, she changed her surname to Cradock by deed poll in 1942. When she was misinformed that Arthur had died, she married Johnnie on 7 May 1977. (Arthur actually lived until 1978.) For this marriage Cradock went with a pared down version of her name ("Phyllis Chapman"), and the then 68-year-old recorded her age as 55 on the marriage certificate, even though she had a son who was nearly fifty.

Death

She died following a stroke on 27 December 1994; the cause of death was cited as 'cerebrovascular atherosclerosis'. Both Fanny and Johnnie were cremated at Langney Crematorium, Eastbourne. There is a memorial plaque and a rosebush in the grounds of the crematorium for both of them.

Bibliography

Autobiography

• Something's Burning (1960)
• Time to Remember – A Cook for All Seasons (Web & Bower, 1981)

Novels

• as Frances Dale
  • Scorpion’s Suicide (Hurst & Blackett: London. 1942)
  • Women Must Wait (Hurst & Blackett: London. 1944)
  • The Rags of Time (Hurst & Blackett: London. 1944)
  • The Land is in Good Heart (Hurst & Blackett: London. 1945)
  • My Seed — Thy Harvest (Hurst & Blackett: London. 1946)
  • O Daughter of Babylon (Hurst & Blackett: London. 1947)
  • The Echo in the Cup (Hurst & Blackett: London. 1949)
  • The Shadow of Heaven (Hurst & Blackett: London. 1950)
  • The Dark Reflection (Hurst & Blackett: London. 1950)
• as Phyllis Cradock
  • Gateway to Remembrance (1949)
  • The Eternal Echo (1950)
• as Fanny Cradock
  • The Lormes of Castle Rising (1975) ISBN 0-8415-0437-7
  • Shadows Over Castle Rising (1976) ISBN 0-525-20128-9
  • War Comes to Castle Rising (1977) ISBN 0-525-23009-2
  • Wind of Change at Castle Rising (1979) ISBN 0-525-23468-3
  • Uneasy Peace at Castle Rising (1979)
  • Thunder Over Castle Rising (1980)
  • Gathering Clouds at Castle Rising (1981)
  • Fateful Years at Castle Rising (1982)
  • Defence of Castle Rising (1984)
  • Loneliness of Castle Rising (1986)
  • The Windsor Secret (1986) ISBN 0-352-32064-8

Non-fiction (Travel)

• as Frances Dale/Bon Viveur
  • Bon Voyage - how to enjoy your holiday in Europe with a car (Lehman, 1949)
  • Bon Viveur In London by Frances Dale & John Cradock (Lehman, 1951)
  • Around Britain With Bon Viveur by Frances Dale & John Cradock (Lehman, 1952)

• As Fanny and Johnnie Cradock/Bon Viveur
  • Where To Dine In London (Bless, 1937)
  • The Daily Telegraph Book of Bon Viveur in London (Pitkin/Daily Telegraph, 1950)
  • Eating in England's Inns reprinted from The Daily Telegraph (Pitkin/Daily Telegraph, 1951)
  • In Search of a Holiday Hotel (H.A. & W.L. Pitkin Ltd, 1951)
  • In Quest of Pleasure (H.A. & W.L. Pitkin Ltd, 1951)
  • Eating Out in London (H.A. & W.L. Pitkin Ltd, 1951)
  • Around Britain with Bon Viveur. (John Lehman, 1952)
  • Holiday in Austrian Tyrol (Muller, 1953)
  • Holiday in Holland (Muller, 1954)
  • Bon Viveur in London (H.A. & W.L. Pitkin Ltd, 1954)
  • Bon Viveur's London and The British Isles (Andrew Dakers Ltd, 1954)
  • Holiday in Barcelona and the Balearics (Muller, 1954)
  • Holiday in Denmark (Muller, 1955)
  • Holiday in Belgium (Muller, 1955)
  • Holiday in Sweden (Muller, 1955)
  • Holiday in the Touraine with Bon Viveur (Muller, 1956)
  • Holiday on the French Riviera (Muller, 1960)
  • The Bon Viveur Guide To Holidays In Europe (Arthur Barker Limited, 1964)

Children's Books

• As Francis Dale
  • When Michael was Three (Hutchinson's Books for Young People: London. 1945)
  • When Michael was Six (Hutchinson's Books for Young People: London. 1946)
  • Always. The Enchanted Land (Hutchinson's Books for Young People: London. 1947)
  • The Dryad and the Toad (Macdonald: London. 1948)
  • The Gooseyplums by the Sea (Hodder & Stoughton: London. 1950)
  • The Gooseyplums of Duckpond-in-the-Dip. (Hodder & Stoughton: London. 1950)
  • Brigadier Gooseyplum Goes to War (Hodder & Stoughton: London. 1950)
  • The Story of Joseph and Pharaoh (Hodder & Stoughton: London. 1950)
  • Fish Knight and Sea Maiden: A Children's Romance (Hutchinson's Books for Young People: London. 1952)

• As Susan Leigh
  • Naughty Red Lion (Hodder & Stoughton: London. 1947)
  • Naughty Red Lion Beware (Hodder & Stoughton: London. 1947)

Cookery books

• The Practical Cook (Lehman, writing as Frances Dale, 1949)
• Daily Express Enjoyable Cookery: More Than 1000 Tested Recipes (Daily Express, writing as Frances Dale, 1950)
• The Ambitious Cook (Lehmann, writing as Frances Dale, 1952)
• New Dishes from the Daily Telegraph (H.A. & W.L. Pitkin Ltd, 1952)
• An A.B.C. of Wine Drinking (Frederick Muller Ltd. Bon Viveur, 1954)
• Definitely Different – Daily Telegraph Recipe Book (The Chapel River Press, 1954)
• Inside Information – the experts advice from the Daily Telegraph (Daily Telegraph, 1955)
• Cooking with Bon Viveur (Museum Press Ltd, 1955 – writing as John and Phyllis Cradock)
• Bon Viveur Request Cook Book (Museum Press, 1958 – writing as John and Fanny Cradock)
• Wining and Dining in France with Bon Viveur (Putman, 1959)
• Happy Cooking, Children #1-Beginning to Cook (Putnam: London. Bon Viveur, 1959)
• Happy Cooking, Children #2-Children's Outdoor Cookery (Putnam: London. Bon Viveur, 1959)
• Happy Cooking, Children #3-The Young Chef (Putnam: London. Bon Viveur, 1959)
• Happy Cooking, Children #4-Children's Party Cookery (Putnam: London. Bon Viveur, 1959)
• Mr Therm's Encyclopaedia of Vegetable Cookery Volume 1: Cabbages And Things (Gas Council, 1959)
• Mr Therm's Encyclopaedia of Vegetable Cookery Volume 2: Veg And Vim (Gas Council, 1959)
• Bon Viveur Recipes (aka The Daily Mail Cookery Book (Daily Mail, c. 1960)
• Daily Telegraph Cook's Book (Collins Fontana Books, 1964) by Bon Viveur
• Fun with Cookery (Learning with Fun) (Edmund Ward, 1965)
• Daily Telegraph Sociable Cook's Book (Collins Fontana Books, 1967) by Bon Viveur
• The Book of Foil Cookery (Spectator Publications, 1967)
• Coping with Christmas (Collins Fontana Books, 1968)
• Fanny & Johnnie Cradocks' The Cook Hostess' Book (Cookery Book Club, 1970)
• Modest but Delicious (Arlington Books/The Daily Telegraph, 1973)
• Common Market Cookery: France (BBC Books, 1973) ISBN 0-563-12586-1
• Lessons for a cook: A series of articles reprinted from 'The Daily Telegraph' in which they appeared month-by-month (Daily Telegraph, 1974)
• Common Market Cookery: Italy (BBC Books, 1974)
• 365 Puddings (Daily Telegraph, Summer 1975) by Bon Viveur
• Pasta Cookery (Daily Telegraph, 1975)
• Wine for Today (Frederick Muller Ltd. Johnnie Cradock with foreword by Fanny, 1975)
• The Sherlock Holmes Cookbook (W H Allen, 1976)
• 365 Soups (The Daily Telegraph, Winter 1977) by Bon Viveur
• Fanny & Johnnie Cradock's Freezer Book (W H Allen, 1978)
• Cooking Is Fun: A Children's Book (W H Allen, 1978)
• A Cook's Essential Alphabet (W H Allen, 1979)
• A Lifetime In The Kitchen Volume One: For Beginner Cooks (W H Allen, 1985) 432 pages
• A Lifetime In The Kitchen Volume Two: Family Cooking (W H Allen, 1985) 428 pages
• A Lifetime In The Kitchen Volume Three: The Ambitious Cook (W H Allen, 1985) 455 pages ISBN 0-491-03630-2

Booklets

• Home Cooking with Fanny Cradock (BBC, 1965 – TV Series: April–June 1965)
• Adventurous Cooking with Fanny Cradock (BBC, 1966 – TV Series: April–June 1965)
• Come For A Meal: A Woman's Hour Cookery Book (BBC Books, Multiple authors, 1966)
• Ten Classic Dishes (BBC Worldwide, 1967 – TV Series: January–March 1968)
• Problem Cooking with Fanny Cradock (BBC, 1967 – TV Series: 1967)
• Eight Special Menus with Their Accompanying Wines for the Busy Cook-Hostess (Mendham Bros/Gas Council, 1967)
• Colourful Cookery (BBC, 1968 – TV Series: October–December 1968)
• Giving a Dinner Party (BBC Worldwide, 1969 – TV Series: July–October 1969)
• Fanny Cradock Invites (BBC, 1970 – TV Series: July–October 1970)
• Fanny & Johnnie Cradock Cookery Programme: A Complete Cookery Programme Published in 96 Weekly Instalments (Purnell, 1970–1972, curtailed after volume 80).
• Fanny Cradock's Nationwide Cook Book (BBC, 1972)
• Fanny Cradock's Christmas Cooking (BBC, 1975 – TV Series: November–December 1975)

Contributions

• The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy GLASSE, H., (Introduction by CRADOCK, F) 1971 London: S.R. Publishers Ltd
• The Royal Cookery Book GOUFFE, J., (Introduction by CRADOCK, F) 1973 . Wakefield: E.P. Publishers Ltd

• Windmill (29 December 1985, 31 March 1986, 17 January 1988)

Legacy

Fanny Cradock came to the attention of the public in the postwar-utility years, trying to inspire the average housewife with an exotic approach to cooking. She famously worked in various ball-gowns without the customary cook's apron, averring that women should feel cooking was easy and enjoyable, rather than messy and intimidating.

In her early anonymous role as a food critic, working with Major Cradock under the name of 'Bon Viveur', Fanny introduced the public to unusual dishes from France and Italy, popularising the pizza in the United Kingdom. She and Johnny worked together on a touring cookery show, sponsored by the Gas Council, to show how gas could be used easily in the kitchen and, as their fame increased, Fanny's shows transferred to television, where she enjoyed 20 years of success.

Cradock has also been credited in the United Kingdom as the originator of the prawn cocktail. Although some have suggested that Cradock popularised her version of an established dish that was not well known until then in Britain. In their 1997 book The Prawn Cocktail Years, Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham note that the prawn cocktail has a "direct lineage to Escoffier".

In the course of her shows Fanny made frequent concessions to the economic realities of the era, suggesting cheaper alternatives which would be within reach of the housewife's purse. The BBC published her recipes and suggestions for dinner-parties in a series of booklets, consolidating her reputation as the foremost celebrity chef of her day.

Marguerite Patten has described Fanny Cradock as the saviour of British cooking after the war. Brian Turner has said that he respects Fanny's career and Delia Smith has attributed her own career to early inspirations taken from the Cradocks' television programmes. Others are less complimentary and in the BBC series The Way We Cooked in an episode dedicated to Cradock and Graham Kerr, Keith Floyd and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, amongst others, disparaged her methods and cooking skill. Despite their extravagant appearance and eccentricity, her recipes were extremely widely used and her cookery books sold in record numbers. In the third series of The F Word, Gordon Ramsay held a series-long search for a new Fanny Cradock.

Media portrayals

Fanny Cradock's husky voice and theatrical style was ripe for mimicry, such as Betty Marsden's 'Fanny Haddock' in two BBC Radio comedy shows, Beyond Our Ken (1958–1964) and Round the Horne (1964–1968). Fanny and Johnnie were also parodied by The Two Ronnies and on Benny Hill, with Benny as Fanny and Bob Todd as an invariably drunk Johnnie.

Cradock's life has also been the subject of the plays Doughnuts Like Fanny's by Julia Darling and Fear of Fanny by Brian Fillis. After a successful run by the Leeds Library Theatre Company, touring the United Kingdom in October and November 2003, Fear of Fanny was turned into a television drama starring Mark Gatiss and Julia Davis and featuring Hayley Atwell. The production broadcast in October 2006 on BBC Four as one of a series of culinary-themed dramas.

Sucking Shrimp by Stephanie Theobald has Fanny Cradock as one of its central characters. To provincial Cornish heroine Rosa Barge, Cradock represents glamour, sophistication and the life she aspires to in her concoctions of a Taj Mahal out of Italian meringue and duchesse potato dyed vivid green.

In 2019, the cabaret group 'Duckie' staged Duckie Loves Fanny as part of the London Borough of Waltham Forest's programme of events marking the locale's year-long status as London Borough of Culture. Members of the cabaret group described their performance as a "very queer mashup of postwar pop culture, style, food and gender politics in honour of the fearsome TV cook in her home area of Leytonstone".

External links

• Fanny Cradock at IMDb

End of her television career

In 1976, Gwen Troake, a farmer’s wife from Devon, won the Cook of the Realm competition, leading to the BBC selecting her for its TV series The Big Time, where talented amateurs were given the opportunity to take part in a spectacular professional event. Troake was to organise a three-course Foyle's Literary Lunch at the Devonshire Hotel in honour of the former Prime Minister Edward Heath, with Earl Mountbatten of Burma and other dignitaries in attendance, and asked Fanny Cradock, by then a tax exile in Ireland, along with chef Eugene Kaufeler, actor and gourmet Robert Morley, nutritionist Magnus Pyke and many other experts Troake admired to advise her.

The result brought the end of Fanny Cradock's television career. Troake went through her menu of seafood cocktail, duckling with a lemon jelly-and-cornstarch fortified bramble sauce and coffee cream dessert with rum. Her idea was that with seafood, water fowl and rum, the meal had a nautical "theme," which would appeal to Mr Heath’s love of sailing and also be an appropriate salute to the former Admiral Mountbatten. Cradock, grimacing and acting as if on the verge of gagging, told Troake that her menu was far too rich and she would "never in a million years" serve a seafood cocktail before a duck. She appeared not to be familiar with the term "bramble," and when told it meant a blackberry, was horrified that it would be paired with a savoury duck, remonstrated that a sauce like that should be brushed on flan. She derisively declared that the jam in it was "too English" and that the English had never had a cuisine, erroneously claimed that "Yorkshire pudding came from Burgundy". While accepting that Troake's dessert was delicious, she insisted that it was not suitable, as it was "too sickly" served after the sweetly-sauced, rich duck, countering Troake's numerous objections with "Yes, dear, but now you're among professionals."

Fanny suggested that unless Troake were to serve salad and cheese afterward, as is done in France, then she should use small almond pastry barquettes filled with a palate-cleansing fruit sorbet with spun sugar sails - equally suitable for the naval theme. Troake kept insisting that she liked her signature coffee pudding with "nautical" rum in it, while Cradock appealed to her to think of her diners' taste buds and stomachs, and try to achieve a balance in her menu. Unfortunately, the replacement dessert was not executed properly, and Morley said he felt that Troake's original coffee pudding was perfect.

The public were incensed at her eye-rolling rudeness and condescension, and felt that Fanny Cradock had ruined Troake's special day. The Daily Telegraph wrote "Not since 1940 can the people of England have risen in such unified wrath....". Fanny wrote a letter of apology to Troake, but the BBC terminated her contract two weeks after the broadcast of the programme. She would never again present a cookery programme for the BBC. (Troake, by contrast, published A Country Cookbook of recipes the following year; it included the coffee cream dessert Cradock had vetoed.) Speaking about the incident on Room 101 in 1999, The Big Time's producer Esther Rantzen described Cradock as "hell on wheels", and that she had "reduced this poor little lady [Troake] to nothing".

Final years

Fanny and Johnnie Cradock spent their final years living at Bexhill on Sea, East Sussex. They became regulars on the chat show circuit, and also appeared on programmes such as The Generation Game and Blankety Blank. Fanny appeared alone on Wogan, Parkinson and TV-am. When she appeared on the television chat show Parkinson with Danny La Rue and it was revealed to her that La Rue was actually a female impersonator, she stormed off the set. Her final BBC appearance and her final television appearance was in early 1988 on Windmill presented by Chris Serle.

Personal life

Cradock married four times, twice bigamously. First she married Sidney A. Vernon Evans on 10 October 1926, she was 17, he was 22. Cradock married as "Phyllis Nan Primrose Pechey"; "Primrose Pechey" was a form passed down her father's side. Sidney Evans died in a plane crash on 4 February 1927, leaving her pregnant with their son Peter Vernon Evans, who was adopted by his grandparents. Thanks to Johnnie Cradock, Peter later became a sous-chef at the Dorchester Hotel.

By July of the following year Cradock had become pregnant again, and married the baby's father Arthur William Chapman on 23 July. For this marriage Cradock gave her name as "Phyllis Nan Sortain Vernon Evans."

The couple had a son Christopher, but their marriage lasted less than a year before they separated. Cradock left her son Christopher and husband Arthur for a new life in Central London. Christopher was brought up in Norfolk by his father, an aunt and grandmother, although he made contact with Fanny in his adult life. Arthur Chapman became a Catholic and so would not give Fanny the divorce she later requested, as it was against the teachings of the Catholic Church. He was given only a single line in Fanny's autobiography.

Cradock married again on 26 September 1939, as "Phyllis Nan Sortain Chapman"; her husband this time was Gregory Holden-Dye, a daredevil minor racing driver, driving Bentleys at Brooklands in Surrey. The marriage lasted only eight weeks, and produced no children, as she had soon met the love of her life Johnnie Cradock. Gregory's mother had expressed a low opinion of Fanny, and ended up as a loathsome character in Fanny's first novel Scorpion's Suicide. Cradock later concluded that as Arthur Chapman had not granted her a divorce, her marriage to Gregory was not lawful, and so never publicised it.

John Whitby Cradock was a major in the Royal Artillery who was already married with four children. He soon left his wife, Ethel, and children to be with Fanny. Unable to marry Johnnie, because of Arthur's refusal to get divorced, she changed her surname to Cradock by deed poll in 1942. When she was misinformed that Arthur had died, she married Johnnie on 7 May 1977. (Arthur actually lived until 1978.) For this marriage Cradock went with a pared down version of her name ("Phyllis Chapman"), and the then 68-year-old recorded her age as 55 on the marriage certificate, even though she had a son who was nearly fifty.

Death

She died following a stroke on 27 December 1994; the cause of death was cited as 'cerebrovascular atherosclerosis'. Both Fanny and Johnnie were cremated at Langney Crematorium, Eastbourne. There is a memorial plaque and a rosebush in the grounds of the crematorium for both of them.

Bibliography

Autobiography

• Something's Burning (1960)
• Time to Remember – A Cook for All Seasons (Web & Bower, 1981)

Novels

• as Frances Dale
  • Scorpion’s Suicide (Hurst & Blackett: London. 1942)
  • Women Must Wait (Hurst & Blackett: London. 1944)
  • The Rags of Time (Hurst & Blackett: London. 1944)
  • The Land is in Good Heart (Hurst & Blackett: London. 1945)
  • My Seed — Thy Harvest (Hurst & Blackett: London. 1946)
  • O Daughter of Babylon (Hurst & Blackett: London. 1947)
  • The Echo in the Cup (Hurst & Blackett: London. 1949)
  • The Shadow of Heaven (Hurst & Blackett: London. 1950)
  • The Dark Reflection (Hurst & Blackett: London. 1950)
• as Phyllis Cradock
  • Gateway to Remembrance (1949)
  • The Eternal Echo (1950)
• as Fanny Cradock
  • The Lormes of Castle Rising (1975) ISBN 0-8415-0437-7
  • Shadows Over Castle Rising (1976) ISBN 0-525-20128-9
  • War Comes to Castle Rising (1977) ISBN 0-525-23009-2
  • Wind of Change at Castle Rising (1979) ISBN 0-525-23468-3
  • Uneasy Peace at Castle Rising (1979)
  • Thunder Over Castle Rising (1980)
  • Gathering Clouds at Castle Rising (1981)
  • Fateful Years at Castle Rising (1982)
  • Defence of Castle Rising (1984)
  • Loneliness of Castle Rising (1986)
  • The Windsor Secret (1986) ISBN 0-352-32064-8

Non-fiction (Travel)

• as Frances Dale/Bon Viveur
  • Bon Voyage - how to enjoy your holiday in Europe with a car (Lehman, 1949)
  • Bon Viveur In London by Frances Dale & John Cradock (Lehman, 1951)
  • Around Britain With Bon Viveur by Frances Dale & John Cradock (Lehman, 1952)

• As Fanny and Johnnie Cradock/Bon Viveur
  • Where To Dine In London (Bless, 1937)
  • The Daily Telegraph Book of Bon Viveur in London (Pitkin/Daily Telegraph, 1950)
  • Eating in England's Inns reprinted from The Daily Telegraph (Pitkin/Daily Telegraph, 1951)
  • In Search of a Holiday Hotel (H.A. & W.L. Pitkin Ltd, 1951)
  • In Quest of Pleasure (H.A. & W.L. Pitkin Ltd, 1951)
  • Eating Out in London (H.A. & W.L. Pitkin Ltd, 1951)
  • Around Britain with Bon Viveur. (John Lehman, 1952)
  • Holiday in Austrian Tyrol (Muller, 1953)
  • Holiday in Holland (Muller, 1954)
  • Bon Viveur in London (H.A. & W.L. Pitkin Ltd, 1954)
  • Bon Viveur's London and The British Isles (Andrew Dakers Ltd, 1954)
  • Holiday in Barcelona and the Balearics (Muller, 1954)
  • Holiday in Denmark (Muller, 1955)
  • Holiday in Belgium (Muller, 1955)
  • Holiday in Sweden (Muller, 1955)
  • Holiday in the Touraine with Bon Viveur (Muller, 1956)
  • Holiday on the French Riviera (Muller, 1960)
  • The Bon Viveur Guide To Holidays In Europe (Arthur Barker Limited, 1964)

Children's Books

• As Francis Dale
  • When Michael was Three (Hutchinson's Books for Young People: London. 1945)
  • When Michael was Six (Hutchinson's Books for Young People: London. 1946)
  • Always. The Enchanted Land (Hutchinson's Books for Young People: London. 1947)
  • The Dryad and the Toad (Macdonald: London. 1948)
  • The Gooseyplums by the Sea (Hodder & Stoughton: London. 1950)
  • The Gooseyplums of Duckpond-in-the-Dip. (Hodder & Stoughton: London. 1950)
  • Brigadier Gooseyplum Goes to War (Hodder & Stoughton: London. 1950)
  • The Story of Joseph and Pharaoh (Hodder & Stoughton: London. 1950)
  • Fish Knight and Sea Maiden: A Children's Romance (Hutchinson's Books for Young People: London. 1952)

• As Susan Leigh
  • Naughty Red Lion (Hodder & Stoughton: London. 1947)
  • Naughty Red Lion Beware (Hodder & Stoughton: London. 1947)

Cookery books

• The Practical Cook (Lehman, writing as Frances Dale, 1949)
• Daily Express Enjoyable Cookery: More Than 1000 Tested Recipes (Daily Express, writing as Frances Dale, 1950)
• The Ambitious Cook (Lehmann, writing as Frances Dale, 1952)
• New Dishes from the Daily Telegraph (H.A. & W.L. Pitkin Ltd, 1952)
• An A.B.C. of Wine Drinking (Frederick Muller Ltd. Bon Viveur, 1954)
• Definitely Different – Daily Telegraph Recipe Book (The Chapel River Press, 1954)
• Inside Information – the experts advice from the Daily Telegraph (Daily Telegraph, 1955)
• Cooking with Bon Viveur (Museum Press Ltd, 1955 – writing as John and Phyllis Cradock)
• Bon Viveur Request Cook Book (Museum Press, 1958 – writing as John and Fanny Cradock)
• Wining and Dining in France with Bon Viveur (Putman, 1959)
• Happy Cooking, Children #1-Beginning to Cook (Putnam: London. Bon Viveur, 1959)
• Happy Cooking, Children #2-Children's Outdoor Cookery (Putnam: London. Bon Viveur, 1959)
• Happy Cooking, Children #3-The Young Chef (Putnam: London. Bon Viveur, 1959)
• Happy Cooking, Children #4-Children's Party Cookery (Putnam: London. Bon Viveur, 1959)
• Mr Therm's Encyclopaedia of Vegetable Cookery Volume 1: Cabbages And Things (Gas Council, 1959)
• Mr Therm's Encyclopaedia of Vegetable Cookery Volume 2: Veg And Vim (Gas Council, 1959)
• Bon Viveur Recipes (aka The Daily Mail Cookery Book (Daily Mail, c. 1960)
• Daily Telegraph Cook's Book (Collins Fontana Books, 1964) by Bon Viveur
• Fun with Cookery (Learning with Fun) (Edmund Ward, 1965)
• Daily Telegraph Sociable Cook's Book (Collins Fontana Books, 1967) by Bon Viveur
• The Book of Foil Cookery (Spectator Publications, 1967)
• Coping with Christmas (Collins Fontana Books, 1968)
• Fanny & Johnnie Cradocks' The Cook Hostess' Book (Cookery Book Club, 1970)
• Modest but Delicious (Arlington Books/The Daily Telegraph, 1973)
• Common Market Cookery: France (BBC Books, 1973) ISBN 0-563-12586-1
• Lessons for a cook: A series of articles reprinted from 'The Daily Telegraph' in which they appeared month-by-month (Daily Telegraph, 1974)
• Common Market Cookery: Italy (BBC Books, 1974)
• 365 Puddings (Daily Telegraph, Summer 1975) by Bon Viveur
• Pasta Cookery (Daily Telegraph, 1975)
• Wine for Today (Frederick Muller Ltd. Johnnie Cradock with foreword by Fanny, 1975)
• The Sherlock Holmes Cookbook (W H Allen, 1976)
• 365 Soups (The Daily Telegraph, Winter 1977) by Bon Viveur
• Fanny & Johnnie Cradock's Freezer Book (W H Allen, 1978)
• Cooking Is Fun: A Children's Book (W H Allen, 1978)
• A Cook's Essential Alphabet (W H Allen, 1979)
• A Lifetime In The Kitchen Volume One: For Beginner Cooks (W H Allen, 1985) 432 pages
• A Lifetime In The Kitchen Volume Two: Family Cooking (W H Allen, 1985) 428 pages
• A Lifetime In The Kitchen Volume Three: The Ambitious Cook (W H Allen, 1985) 455 pages ISBN 0-491-03630-2

Booklets

• Home Cooking with Fanny Cradock (BBC, 1965 – TV Series: April–June 1965)
• Adventurous Cooking with Fanny Cradock (BBC, 1966 – TV Series: April–June 1965)
• Come For A Meal: A Woman's Hour Cookery Book (BBC Books, Multiple authors, 1966)
• Ten Classic Dishes (BBC Worldwide, 1967 – TV Series: January–March 1968)
• Problem Cooking with Fanny Cradock (BBC, 1967 – TV Series: 1967)
• Eight Special Menus with Their Accompanying Wines for the Busy Cook-Hostess (Mendham Bros/Gas Council, 1967)
• Colourful Cookery (BBC, 1968 – TV Series: October–December 1968)
• Giving a Dinner Party (BBC Worldwide, 1969 – TV Series: July–October 1969)
• Fanny Cradock Invites (BBC, 1970 – TV Series: July–October 1970)
• Fanny & Johnnie Cradock Cookery Programme: A Complete Cookery Programme Published in 96 Weekly Instalments (Purnell, 1970–1972, curtailed after volume 80).
• Fanny Cradock's Nationwide Cook Book (BBC, 1972)
• Fanny Cradock's Christmas Cooking (BBC, 1975 – TV Series: November–December 1975)

Contributions

• The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy GLASSE, H., (Introduction by CRADOCK, F) 1971 London: S.R. Publishers Ltd
• The Royal Cookery Book GOUFFE, J., (Introduction by CRADOCK, F) 1973 . Wakefield: E.P. Publishers Ltd

Legacy

Fanny Cradock came to the attention of the public in the postwar-utility years, trying to inspire the average housewife with an exotic approach to cooking. She famously worked in various ball-gowns without the customary cook's apron, averring that women should feel cooking was easy and enjoyable, rather than messy and intimidating.

In her early anonymous role as a food critic, working with Major Cradock under the name of 'Bon Viveur', Fanny introduced the public to unusual dishes from France and Italy, popularising the pizza in the United Kingdom. She and Johnny worked together on a touring cookery show, sponsored by the Gas Council, to show how gas could be used easily in the kitchen and, as their fame increased, Fanny's shows transferred to television, where she enjoyed 20 years of success.

Cradock has also been credited in the United Kingdom as the originator of the prawn cocktail. Although some have suggested that Cradock popularised her version of an established dish that was not well known until then in Britain. In their 1997 book The Prawn Cocktail Years, Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham note that the prawn cocktail has a "direct lineage to Escoffier".

In the course of her shows Fanny made frequent concessions to the economic realities of the era, suggesting cheaper alternatives which would be within reach of the housewife's purse. The BBC published her recipes and suggestions for dinner-parties in a series of booklets, consolidating her reputation as the foremost celebrity chef of her day.

Marguerite Patten has described Fanny Cradock as the saviour of British cooking after the war. Brian Turner has said that he respects Fanny's career and Delia Smith has attributed her own career to early inspirations taken from the Cradocks' television programmes. Others are less complimentary and in the BBC series The Way We Cooked in an episode dedicated to Cradock and Graham Kerr, Keith Floyd and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, amongst others, disparaged her methods and cooking skill. Despite their extravagant appearance and eccentricity, her recipes were extremely widely used and her cookery books sold in record numbers. In the third series of The F Word, Gordon Ramsay held a series-long search for a new Fanny Cradock.

Media portrayals

Fanny Cradock's husky voice and theatrical style was ripe for mimicry, such as Betty Marsden's 'Fanny Haddock' in two BBC Radio comedy shows, Beyond Our Ken (1958–1964) and Round the Horne (1964–1968). Fanny and Johnnie were also parodied by The Two Ronnies and on Benny Hill, with Benny as Fanny and Bob Todd as an invariably drunk Johnnie.

Cradock's life has also been the subject of the plays Doughnuts Like Fanny's by Julia Darling and Fear of Fanny by Brian Fillis. After a successful run by the Leeds Library Theatre Company, touring the United Kingdom in October and November 2003, Fear of Fanny was turned into a television drama starring Mark Gatiss and Julia Davis and featuring Hayley Atwell. The production broadcast in October 2006 on BBC Four as one of a series of culinary-themed dramas.

Sucking Shrimp by Stephanie Theobald has Fanny Cradock as one of its central characters. To provincial Cornish heroine Rosa Barge, Cradock represents glamour, sophistication and the life she aspires to in her concoctions of a Taj Mahal out of Italian meringue and duchesse potato dyed vivid green.

In 2019, the cabaret group 'Duckie' staged Duckie Loves Fanny as part of the London Borough of Waltham Forest's programme of events marking the locale's year-long status as London Borough of Culture. Members of the cabaret group described their performance as a "very queer mashup of postwar pop culture, style, food and gender politics in honour of the fearsome TV cook in her home area of Leytonstone".

External links

• Fanny Cradock at IMDb