THE FAT LADY SINGS
Charles Moore recalls the
idiosyncratic genius of Jennifer Paterson
ONE summer afternoon I was sitting in the garden of The Spectator when the sash from the top-floor kitchen shot up and Jennifer Paterson stuck her head out. `Who's this Digby Anderson?' she yelled, brandishing the latest issue. I explained that he was to be our monthly food writer (at that time The Spectator did not run reg- ular articles about cooking). 'If he can do it, why can't I?' shouted Jennifer. As was quite often the case in conversation with Jennifer, I could not think of a riposte to trump her, so I offered her the post.
Thus began, in her seventh decade, her rise from drudge in the kitchen to fame and fortune as a television cook. She died better known than anyone else associated with The Spectator in modern times.
Jennifer was appointed cook at The Spectator by Alexander Chancellor. He later made her office manager as well, which meant taking messages on her 50cc motor- bike. Alexander thought it also meant replacing the light bulb on his desk-lamp, but Jennifer disagreed and he remained in darkness for many months. She disliked any change, and when we finally had the decrepit office redecorated she screamed, `The place looks like a cat- house.'
If you valued what is now called your private space, Jen- nifer was not the person for you. She would enter any office at any time saying any- thing that came into her head. In the mid- 1980s, the paper was bought by Australians, and I was having my first, rather tense intercontinental telephone conversation with them when Jennifer barged in and started ruffling my hair, bel- lowing 'Darling little Editor' and smother- ing me with kisses. At the lunches which she cooked for the paper's guests, she would intrude her person and her thoughts upon all corners. Once, during a quarrel with Alexander, she came in and collected the remains of the first course. 'That was delicious, Jennifer,' he said, anxious to make peace. 'What was it cooked in?'
Her television fame was particularly deserved and appreciated because she was a natural and, until then, frustrated actress. She loved singing and doing accents and striking poses. Before a big event she would have the equivalent of stage-fright. Once the Prince of Wales came to lunch and the palace let us know in advance that he did not like red meat. `That bloody fusspot Prince will have what- ever I give him,' she said. 'Your inviting him has given me a rash all up my leg.' (Here she offered to show me.) But when he did come she was charm itself and the food was halibut cevice. He and she later became friends, and he sent a letter to her hospital bed that touched her very much.
In all Jennifer's writing, the words came just as she spoke them — clear, funny, idiosyncratic. And the receipts (never say recipes) were excellent, so long as you made allowances for a certain carelessness. Some will remember the walnut and coffee cake introduced with the words, 'Here is a delicious and strange cake', in which she forgot to include the walnuts. I believe there was also a dish which required boil- ing a can of condensed milk: many readers wrote in to say that they had been injured in the resulting explosion.
Three weeks ago, I went to see Jennifer in hospital, but was told by serious-looking nurses that she was not well enough for visitors. Ten days later, I did see her, and explained that I'd been before. `Ah yes, that was when I died,' she said. She was drinking vodka, and I said it was nice the nurses let her. 'I can do anything I like: I'm dying!' She had hundreds of kind letters and presents of caviare (requested in preference to chocolate), but there was one letter from a man who said her illness was her own fault for smoking. `I've written back to him and said: "I'm 71, and you're a prat." ' She was very brave when she was dying. This was partly because the actress in her was determined to put on a good show, and partly because her Catholic faith was her strongest characteristic. If she's right, she's in Purgatory now. I think of her pulling her bad legs painfully upstairs, complaining noisily as she approaches the heavenly banquet.
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