How times have changed. Tonight, BBC4 has been running a whole series of Fanny Cradock cookery programmes back to back. Never before have I seen such a collection of artificial colours that even the the Tweenies would look sepia stood beside them.

Tonight, in the two episodes I watched, she made a Christmas pudding that looked like a dead and decaying brain, and then literally pinched a turkey’s skin off its back so she could stuff bacon and mushrooms up underneath. Not only did it look like a nasty job; the results were utterly revolting. She hacked the turkey to bits with pair of garden secateurs, and looking at the results you’d not have been surprised.

You have to admire the basic simplicity of the programmes, though, for while Nigella brings us into her trendy London townhouse, and Delia hosts programmes in her big Norfolk conservatory, Fanny spent tonight waltzing around a plain-walled kitchen with just two grotty gas cookers (not ovens) stood up behind her. It hasn’t aged well.

So why did she disappear? Well, it seems it was her legendary rudeness that caused her final downfall.

In 1976, Cornish housewife Gwen Troake won a competition called “Cook of the Realm”, the prize being to organise a banquet to be attended by Edward Heath, Earl Mountbatten of Burma and other VIPs. The BBC filmed the result as part of a series called The Big Time, and asked Fanny Cradock to act as one of a number of experts giving Troake advice on her menu. The result would bring about the end of Fanny Cradock’s TV career. Mrs Troake went through her menu of Seafood Cocktail, Duckling with bramble sauce and Coffee Cream dessert. Fanny told her that her menu was too rich, and while accepting that her dessert was delicious, insisted it was not suitable, declaring: ‘You’re among professionals now’. She grimaced, acted as if on the verge of retching, and pretended not to know what a bramble was. She suggested that Troake use a small pastry boat filled with cream and covered with spun sugar. It was completed by an orange slice and a cherry through a cocktail stick, giving the dish the look of a small boat, which Fanny thought was quite suitable for the naval guests.

In the event, the pudding was a disaster and couldn’t be served properly. Robert Morley had also been consulted on the menu and had said that he felt Troake’s original coffee pudding was perfect. However, so insistant was Cradock that she won. When the pudding failed to impress, the public were annoyed that Cradock had seemingly ruined a potential success for the Cornish housewife. Coupled with the rude manner in which Fanny had spoken to Troake, the public demanded her shows be axed from the BBC. Fanny wrote a letter of apology to Troake but the BBC terminated her contract just two weeks after the programme was broadcast. She would never present a cookery programme again. (Source: Wikipedia)

It’s a terrible shame she’s gone. She may have pranced around her grotty kitchen in a ballgown, have worn nasty big jewellery and bows in her hair, garish make-up and nasty hair colour, but she has the ability, even in death, to make the most dismal microwave dinners look like a gourmet feast.

Any one of us, no matter how poor our culinary skills, can feel good about the messes we make in a kitchen after watching two episodes of Fanny back to back.

* The title of this post refers to a comment made by Fanny’s husband on one of her programmes that the viewers, too, could have doughnuts like Fanny’s, before collapsing on the floor in a giggling heap. Needless to say this provoked plenty of complaints in so prudush an age, and Mary Whitehouse picked it up as part of her moral crusade.

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