Clarissa Dickson Wright

Clarissa Dickson-Wright was no stranger to good food as a child. She was born into a home where eating caviar was the norm and pigeons were flown in from Cairo for supper.

Clarissa practised successfully as a barrister for several years. However, she found cookery to be her true calling when she worked at Books for Cooks in London's Notting Hill while recovering from 12 years of alcohol abuse.

During her cooking career, Clarissa ran her own catering business, worked on a yacht in the Caribbean and served 60 meals a day at her London luncheon club. She also became one of only two women in England to become a guild butcher.

Clarissa rode to fame in the sidecar of Jennifer Paterson's motorcycle in the TV series Two Fat Ladies: she was often seen as the slightly saner of the duo. Clarissa died in March 2014.