First lady of the "new sex" is still as sassy

Before Delia ever boiled an egg, or Floyd had a little slurp and even before the Two Fat Ladies were thin, we had celebrity chefs.

Only we didn't call them that, we called them TV cooks. And the First Ladies of the telly kitchen nearly half a century ago were Fanny Craddock in her mascara and evening gown, gracious Marguerite Patten - and sassy Zena Skinner.

Fanny gave over tormenting Johnny some years ago to depart to that great cooking range in the sky, Marguerite has become something of a 20th century food icon - and Zena Skinner is alive and well and making 'skinny cleaners' in Redbourn.

"My first TV appearance was in 1959 when there was only one channel, the BBC, it was black and white, and they paid me ten guineas," says Zena.

"I remember it very well. I did brandy snaps, a bit risky because they can be a problem, but they turned out alright. Mind you, the neighbours had hundreds while I practised...

"All the programmes were live. It was lovely. If something went wrong you couldn't correct it - but it was only a very short slot, 15 minutes, so I prepared a lot at home before I went to the studio - 'here's one I made earlier!'"

With her boisterous laugh and no nonsense approach, Zena Skinner was one of the leading personalities of her day.

For nearly 30 years she was rarely off the box. She wrote 13 recipe books. She opened shopping malls and restaurants. The Queen asked to visit her in her famous TV kitchen at the Ideal Home Exhibition and she even received the supreme accolade - Desert Island Discs.

And in a roundabout way the Queen helped launch her career during a royal tour to East Africa in the fifties where Zena was doing a stint as a demonstrator for food appliance manufacturer GEC.

"I went out on trips to Jamaica, East Africa and the West Indies, demonstrating and training staff. Some of their ingredients I had never seen before, things like breadfruit, plantains, mangoes, okra, saltfish. Grapefruit and lemons were hanging by the roadside.

"I was concentrating on showing them British desserts, because they didn't do much in the way of puddings; they just loved our jellies and trifles.

"While I was in East Africa the Queen was there and they brought some warriors out of the bush to meet her. They came to my stand where I'd been left on my own and I was absolutely terrified - they were all over six foot and carrying spears and I thought I was for the pot.

"In sheer self defence I offered them all cakes. Someone took a photo and it appeared in the national press, and when I got back to England the producer of Cookery Club phoned and asked me to go and see her."

Marguerite Patten was the show's resident cook, but Zena began making guest appearances. It led to more TV spots and she inevitably found herself on the same circuit as the eccentric Fanny Craddock.

"It was made out there was great rivalry between us, but it wasn't true. We were just totally different. Fanny Craddock was the up-market lady wearing an evening dress to cook all sorts of exotic things, and I was the typical housewife making plain British food.

"The first time I met her I said 'Hello' and she looked at me like I was some sort of unpleasant smell under her nose. The next couple of times she ignored me totally, so I gave up. But she was rude to Johnny in public and I felt sorry for him and talked to him. I don't know how he put up with her."

Her big break came on the sixties current affairs programme Town and Around where for five years her weekly brief was to cook topical food. And she created the sort of demand seen years later when Delia Smith specified cranberries and emptied shelves nationwide.

"I'd say to my local butcher and fishmonger 'What are you wanting to get rid of?' One week I did breast of lamb and the supermarket manager in Dunstable phoned and said 'Why didn't you warn me? We've run out.' And I said: 'Well, aren't you pleased!'."

She was not the only one making her name on Town and Around. "There were up and coming presenters like Richard Baker and Michael Aspell. They used to do the news and then they'd say, 'Right, let's go and see what Zena's doing in the kitchen'."

Now, as then, Zena Skinner is a passionate supporter of simple, British dishes. "Good old traditional English cooking - that's me. It's the best in the world. You just can't beat a good steak and kidney pudding. I always used fresh ingredients - a, they were cheap, and b, they were more nutritious. I was known as the fresh food freak."

A precious memory is of going to Sandringham to give a talk and demonstration to the local WI. She was expecting a royal visitor, the Queen Mother; but she had hurt her ankle and to Zena's delight her daughter took her place.

"I am 10 months younger than the Queen and all my life she has been the person I looked up to. I think we all need to have someone in life to admire, and for me it is our Queen."

She has kept the menu of dishes she prepared that day including Lincolnshire fruit loaf, melon delight, citrus punch, gingered gammon and savoury sausage plait.

But it was the Norfolk syllabub of cream, lemon, whisky, grated chocolate and chopped hazelnuts that Her Majesty couldn't resist.

"She asked if she could try it and I said 'Of course' and she said something like 'You'll have to help me out' and there we both were with spoons eating my syllabub together."

More cookery programmes followed. There were three series of quiz programme Know Your Onions, and Bon Appetit where Zena played 'stooge' to a French chef - "a smashing chap called Paul Jenroy" - to help unravel the mysteries of French cuisine to a sceptical Britain.

Ten programmes for the BBC called Ask Zena Skinner in 1970 were a success. But a series on cooking, gardening and D-I-Y, titled Indoors Outdoors, turned out to be her last for Aunty. "The BBC never say you're finished - they just don't ask you any more!"

Then in 1982 Channel Four invited her to make a programme called Years Ahead. It turned into a series that ran for seven years, on a role reversal theme, with Zena fitting windows, mending locks and showing men how to operate washing machines.

She has always been a handicraft enthusiast and now, at 74, and still as zestful as an orange, she makes her skinny cleaners for cleaning down the backs of radiators or reaching cobwebs, and exquisite cross stitched cushions.

All the proceeds, like the fees from a busy programme of talks she continues to give up and down the country, go to medical charities. She and her brother, Bruce, are keen supporters of the Pasque Hospice at Luton and its newer Keech Cottage for life limited children. She has lived in Redbourn for 19 years and helped the village raise £40,000 for the hospices.

Soon we'll be seeing Zena back on telly. Tyne Tees TV has just made a programme about her in their After They Were Famous series to be screened shortly. Delia, watch out.

December 14, 2001 14:00