It’s a first for me to review a book I’ve worked on professionally as an editor. However, copy-editing Lady Glenconner’s Picnic Papers was such a delight, I couldn’t resist sharing it with you – especially as there is, of course, a lot about food in this book. A book about picnics has to include food: simple food gathered together, special food prepared with love, food foraged. And usually a picnic is shared with family and friends and is a joyous event. In Picnic Papers, friends of Lady Glenconner share stories of special picnics they’ve enjoyed, often with a recipe, and there is no doubt you will recognise many of their names. The book was originally published in 1983 (co-written with the late Susannah Johnston) but this edition has been updated and new picnic stories added.
Lady Anne Glenconner was a lady in waiting to Princess Margaret. She published a book about her life and experience in this role in 2020 – Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown – which received excellent reviews. Princess Margaret contributed a picnic story to the original edition of Picnic Papers and it opens this new one with a recipe for Avocado Soup.
In Princess Margaret’s picnic story, we learn that she thinks ‘picnics should always be eaten at table and sitting on a chair’ and she describes arranging a picnic at Hampton Court Palace, where there would be some sightseeing before lunch. ‘I took my butler to ensure everything would be all right,’ she tells us. While this glimpse of royal life may confirm any suspicions we have that they are hugely privileged and have no inkling of what life is like for us ordinary people, what is so wonderful about Lady Glenconner’s book is that we see a more real Princess Margaret, who, despite her need of a butler at a picnic, emerges as a very kind and thoughtful person. Princess Margaret got quite a lot of bad press in her life and now we see a different and largely hidden side to her. In one section, we learn that when novelist Angela Huth lay bedridden while pregnant, ‘Princess Margaret used to go over to her house with Tony (Armstrong-Jones; her husband at the time) on a Saturday evening with a delicious cold supper.’ Princess Margaret’s story sets the tone for gaining insights into many people we will recognise.
Like Princess Margaret, Evelyn Waugh, liked comfort on picnics and agreed to go to American art critic Hilton Gendell’s picnic in Rome ‘only if he did not have to sit on the ground’. Josceline Dimbleby’s picnic though, relies not on chairs and tables but a sailing boat to take her young family – when she was married to broadcaster David Dimbleby – up the River Dart in Devon to ‘Picnic Point’ as she calls it, on ‘a peninsula of majestic oak and beech trees … the most magical place … looking down into the deep green water.’ An acclaimed cookery writer, it’s not surprising to read she cooks delicious food for picnics, from simple butcher’s sausages over a fire, to a whole rib of beef. She also tells us about ‘sitting in basket chairs high above the Ganges … eating delicate samosas.’ She gives us a recipe for Grilled Spiced Chicken.
Another famous cookery writer is Arabella Boxer. Her book First Slice Your Cookbook ‘was an absolute bible’, Lady Glenconner tells us. I have a copy still on my shelves and used it a lot at one time – though many years after its publication in 1964, I’d like to add! Arabella’s picnic contribution focuses on picnics while travelling, from her experience on the Trans-Siberian Railway to air travel. She doesn’t give us a recipe but suggestions for various menus you might take on a flight and advice about the best things to eat and drink. While they might be rather sophisticated fare for the modern traveller, it’s fun to get a glimpse of early flight travel.
Lady Anne and her husband Colin had a home on the island of Mustique, which became famous for being where Princess Margaret met Roddy Lewellyn – Lady Anne introduced them. Another famous visitor to the island was rock star Bryan Adams. His picnic is more akin to what most of us take, simple things like crudités, flatbread, etc., and he gives us his recipe for hummus.
We hear different ideas about what constitutes a good and memorable picnic. Tina Brown declares that ‘To create a memorable picnic at least one person … has to exhibit an imaginative interest in food.’ Rachel Johnson remembers a steep climb on the island of Arran for a ‘most sumptuous picnic’ and believes ‘a picnic is portable food you can eat out of your hands and needs no embellishment.’ Actor Rupert Everett remembers childhood picnics in Norfolk with his grandparents, while Graham Norton’s childhood memories are of his native Ireland, holidaying in a caravan. ‘For me,’ he tells us, ‘the only recipe anyone needs for a successful picnic is to see a patch of blue in the sky.’
Jools Holland is a friend and seems to offer exciting entertainment as, despite being almost ninety at the time, Lady Anne is persuaded by him to go for a ride on a jet ski. Gyles Brandreth, meanwhile, tells us ‘When it comes to picnics, I like things to be done properly’ and he comes to the book with a cake recipe from Queen Camilla (with her permission) – a version of a Victoria sponge.
The book is full of delightful stories from a host of interesting people, and gives a wonderful insight into the British obsession with al fresco eating. It’s not a cookbook but there are some great recipes, including exotic ones like Tibetan Meat Dumplings and instructions for a clambake. It’s a perfect gift book so do think about whose Christmas stocking it would happily fill!
Published on 7 November 2024, hardback £22, see Bedford Square Publishers.
