Olga was not the only grandmother who couldn't cook. Mine couldn't either! Her parents had a cook in the house and she then married a man who had cooked for lumberjacks in his wild days in British Columbia.
The story goes that the cook, a Yorkshire woman named Mrs Turner, had once been a junior cook at Tranby Croft, scene of the notorious baccarat scandal, and she had been summoned from the kitchen to be complimented by the future Edward VII on her Yorkshire pudding. Working for my great-grandparents must have been a bit of a comedown. As I understand it, my great-grandmother worked for a time as a governess in a rather less elevated establishment, and when she left to get married, Mrs Turner went with her.
My grandmother did have other talents, however. She was a high-calibre pianist and could always be persuaded to play, though she had no illusions about my musical abilities, and told my mother in no uncertain terms when I was quite small that I had no ear.
Ann
