Spilling the Beans

Clarissa Dickson Wright, famously half of television's Two Fat Ladies, was born into wealth and privilege. Her mother was an Australian heiress, her father was a brilliant surgeon to the royal family; as a child, shooting and hunting were the norm and pigeons were flown in from Cairo for supper. But Clarissa's father was also a tyrannical and violent drunk who used to beat her and force her to eat carrots with slugs still clinging to them. Clarissa was determined and clever, though, and h…