Clarissa Dickson Wright dies, age 66

Clarissa Dickson Wright, the television chef who achieved fame as one half of Two Fat Ladies, has died at the age of 66, her agent said.

She died on Saturday in Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary after being ill for several months. Her agent said Dickson Wright "hadn't been well for a little while" and had been in hospital since the beginning of the year.

A former barrister, she became one of Britain's most famous chefs by teaming up with Jennifer Paterson for a hugely popular series of cookery shows that launched on television screens in 1996.

^{Jennifer Paterson (left) and Clarissa Dickson Wright aboard their classic motorcycle and sidecar combination (PA)}

The programmes, which were the brainchild of producer Patricia Llewellyn, attracted viewers not only for the food but also for the eccentric personalities of the duo who travelled around in a motorbike and sidecar.

The show attracted 70 million viewers around the world before the death of co-presenter Jennifer Paterson, who died from cancer in 1999 at the age of 71.

Announcing her death, a statement from her agents HHB said: “Loved dearly by her friends and many fans all over the world, Clarissa was utterly non-PC and fought for what she believed in, always, with no thought to her own personal cost.

“Her fun and laughter, extraordinary learning and intelligence, will be missed always, by so many of us.”

Agent, Heather Holden-Brown said friends and fans of the star would be “profoundly sad” at news of her death as she remembered her client’s life which was lived “fearlessly and with conviction”.

“Clarissa’s stellar career as a young barrister at Gray’s Inn had been brought to an abrupt end by her well-documented battle with alcohol,” said the agent.

“Her forthcoming birthday on June 24 would have have marked her 27th anniversary of ‘no drinking’, a birthday which meant much more to her than another year on the clock.”

After leaving her law career, she said, Dickson Wright began work as a cook at a St James’s club and in private houses.

Her interest in food then led to her managing Books For Cooks, a specialist bookshop in Notting Hill, west London, and, later, to the publication of her prize-winning A History of English Food.

In 2007, Dickson Wright published an unsparing autobiography, Spilling The Beans, which attracted a flood of letters from readers who said her honest description of her own struggles had helped them deal with their alcoholism.

The daughter of a surgeon to the royal family, the presenter once revealed that she had spent her £2.8 million inheritance in 12 years of heavy drinking. She was also made bankrupt twice.

Commenting on her financial troubles, she once remarked: “My own stupid fault. I’ve always been bad with finance. It’s from not having to worry about it. If you grow up with money, you never really learn that it doesn’t grow on trees.”

“In spite of her childhood in St John’s Wood in north London, Clarissa was dedicated to the cornerstones of rural life and was a keen supporter of the Countryside Alliance,” said Heather Holden-Brown.

“In recent years she often said ‘I’ve had a fantastic life and I’ve done everything I could have wanted to do and more’.

“During her time in hospital she was endlessly touched and impressed by the care of the doctors, nurses and support staff, aware of the pressure under which they work and the fact that sometimes their work was not as valued as it should have been.

“Only a couple of weeks before her death, she was ringing friends asking them to check the very occasional general knowledge crossword clue she was struggling with.”

The agent added that Clarissa had been born and raised a Catholic, and her “faith remained with her, in her own personal way, for the rest of her life, a life lived fearlessly and with conviction.”

Once asked about her faith, Dickson Wright answered with typical honesty: “I’m not a very good or compliant Catholic. I reserve my right to disagree. On the other side, I come from a long line of Nonconformists. My ancestors fought with Cromwell. Other ancestors went with Guy Fawkes. So we’re bolshy on both sides.”

After Two Fat Ladies ended, Dickson Wright made Clarissa and the Countryman, which ran until 2003, and quickly attracted fans for her outspoken views.

She later claimed that the BBC dropped her for going too far in praise of hunting, which she claimed had made former Prime Minister Tony Blair's blood boil.

“Those were glorious years," she said in an interview. "There we were, fighting the war against them on the same BBC that the leader considered his own personal mouthpiece.”

She was often critical of Mr Blair, whom she knew when they were both young barristers in Scotland.

“I don’t recognise the young man that I knew," she said of the future Labour leader. "He was this rather wet, long-haired law student and barrister who nobody expected to succeed. One thought he would disappear without trace, or become a clerk at a London court.”