On May 10, I’ll talk about the importance of telling your story. Yesterday was the funeral of the former The Oxford Times food writer, chef, author and drama critic, Helen Peacocke. The Humanist celebrant, Ian Wilcox used my castaway interview with Helen when giving his tribute to her. Similarly, when Trevor Cowlett the founder/ director of Kennington Choir and Air Commodore Bob Martin died, their families were able to use their life stories written by me. I expect many of you have experienced the feeling. Why didn’t I talk to my father, sister friend about that when they were alive? If you haven’t been interviewed by me or anyone else, why not write down your stories ?
Memories of my friend which will keep her alive for me. I used to call us the LE girls –the female contributors to Oxfordshire Limited Edition magazine when it was award winning. We used to meet twice a year for a meal. Here’s a pic of us taken by Helen in her garden.
She was a dog lover and real ale lover and wrote walks to pubs with dogs. I had the privilege of rekeying some of those walks with her I invited her to talk about the Paws books at the Kennington Literary Festival which I organised before the libraries were threatened with closure.
If you go to the Story Museum you will see Winnie the Witch’s birthday cake. Helen made that. So when we wanted to thanks Korky Paul for helping us to save the libraries, I asked her to make one we could give him.
Her food photography was second to none. Take a look at her pics in Green Power the Spirulina Cookbook. She provided the recipes for free for the Nasio Trust.Helen did something exceptional 10 years ago-she believed in locally sourced food and lived only on them for year- to show it can be done. The only exception she made was salt, coffee and lemons.
She loved poetry and booked tickets for us to go to Adelstrop on the 100 anniversary of Edward Thomas’s poem. In those days writing for The Oxford Times was a privilege, as you can see from the pics display anther memorial yesterday. Pics of her with Terry Waite, John Thaw, Terry Wogan, Tommy Steele, Michael Palin etc. Here’s her castaway feature.
Helen-Peacocke408590-b2a8-4bc6-bea0-69dc45a70b91 See some of you on May 10?