In the 1950’s and right up to the mid 1970’s there was only one cookery queen who ruled Britain’s TV programs : Fanny Cradock.  She pre-dated all the celebrity chefs, even Julia Child, and was quintessentially English right down to her snobby accent and the dreadful fussy dresses that she wore to cook. For the first part of her phenomenally successful TV career Fanny’s henpecked husband Major Johny Cradock was there in the background being bossed around by her and talking about wine to accompanying whatever Fanny was cooking (although he had evidently sampled a great deal of the bottle first.)

The funny thing about this pushy pretentious woman who desperately aspired to be part of ‘p0lite society’ was that she not only married four times, but twice bigamously. But nevertheless she gets kudos from queerguru for the fact that when she was 68 years old when she finally married Major Cradock but she put herself down on the Marriage Certificate as just 55 years old even though her first son was already over 50!

She was however the campiest thing on British TV for decades and revered by so many for this even though her actual recipes were usually quite ridiculous.  She bullied both her assistants in the kitchen and patronized the viewers and we worshiped her for this.  in the end however when she belittled one aspiring amateur cook on camera, the powers at the BBC decided that was the final straw and pulled the plug on her career in 1976.

P.S. If you cannot get enough Fanny (!) then check out this video when she is cooking on stage at the Royal Albert Hall (which is Britain’s Carnegie Hall) and the Grand Dame is in a Ballgown and bedecked in jewels.  It’s just like how Americans believe how we Brits lived.  Well, those of us Upstairs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfjTXTwwagE