Newport Cathedral Emergency Campaign

The one remaining Fat Lady - Clarissa Dickson-Wright - has agreed to come to Newport to help raise funds for the cathedral’s restoration campaign.

Clarissa Dickson Wright was born in St John’s Wood, London. The youngest of four children, she was given 11 forenames. Her father, Arthur Dickson Wright, was a surgeon to the Royal Family, and her mother, Molly, was an Australian heiress.

In 1979, Clarissa Dickson Wright took control of the food at a drinking club in St James’s Place in London. While there she met Clive, a fellow alcoholic, and they had a relationship until his death in 1982 from kidney failure at the age of 40. Shortly thereafter she was disbarred for practising without chambers.

Seven months after leaving a detox centre, Dickson Wright offered to run Books For Cooks, a shop and cafe in Portebello Road, London for the shop’s owner. After seven years, the owner decided to sell the shop, and as Dickson Wright did not have the money to buy it she was sacked. She then moved to Edinburgh and ran the Cooks Book Shop.

During her time in Edinburgh, television producer Patricia Llewellyn asked her and Jennifer Paterson if they wanted to make a television programme; they made a pilot in autumn 1994. After the pilot, BBC2 commissioned a series of Two Fat Ladies. Three successful series were made and shown around the world, but Paterson died in 1999 mid-way through the fourth series.

Laissez will speak at the University of Wales Newport, Caerleon Campus on January 15th. Tickets priced £15 are available from the cathedral shop or the appeal office on (01633) 212077.

Fr. Mark Soady
Newport Cathedral Restoration Campaign Spokesman
Mob 07968 53978/07777677358
01633 854657/800556(Vicarage)
01633 432657/432396(University)
01633 432603
marksoady@btinternet.com / mark.soady@newport.ac.uk