OBITUARY
Remembering star Clarissa
Former celebrity chef and TV personality
Clarissa Dickson Wright, who died
recently aged 66, was a regular visitor to
the Island, and a strong supporter of the
IW Hunt.
Clarissa was also a friend of IW Garlic
Farm owner Colin Boswell and his family,
and Colin recalled some of the amusing
times he spent with her.
He said: “The first time I met Clarissa
she was involved in the Food Lovers’
Fairs, bringing local specialist food
producers from all over the UK together
for a series of events around the country.
When the series finished she wanted
everyone involved to bring some meat,
significant to their particular area, to a
barbecue.
“For some reason I joked with her that
we had wild, black and white pigs on
the Island. We had two weeks to find
something, and I was still wondering
what I was going to take, when one day
I was driving along the road and saw a
freshly killed badger on the roadside.
“So I took it home, cut it up, marinated
it for three days, and took it to the
barbecue. A lot of the top food writers
said they did not realise there were
wild pigs on the Isle of Wight and
complimented me on its excellent taste.
Then Clarissa came along, recognised it as
badger and said ‘it’s a long time since
I’ve had some of that’. She loved it,
and from that day on she called me
‘Badger’.”
Clarissa opened the Heritage
Centre at the Garlic Farm, and also
supported and raised funds for the
IW Hunt. Colin said: “Everyone loved
her. She could talk to anyone in the
countryside about the countryside.
She was a wonderful lady and will be
missed everywhere.”
At the age of 21, Clarissa passed
her exams and became the country's
youngest barrister, but she was
perhaps best known as one half along with the late Jennifer Paterson in the BBC2 series ‘Two Fat Ladies’.
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