Fanny Cradock

Fanny Cradock had a very complicated family life, and this is reflected in the considerable confusion that surrounds the issue of her real name. According to Wikipedia she was born Phyllis Nan Sortain Pechey, but her obituaries in both the Independent and the Grauniad give her full name as Phyllis Primrose–Pechey.

Her father was an obscure novelist and lyricist named Archibald Thomas Pechey. He wrote lyrics under the pseudonym 'Valentine'; his best–known work appears to be the lyrics for the musical play The Maid of the Mountains, which was first produced in 1916. Fanny's mother was born Bijou Sortain Hancock. (ancestry.com lists several people with the name Sortain Hancock, which appears to be a double–barrelled surname, with or without a hyphen. Wikipedia names Fanny's grandfather as Charles Hancock.)

A plaque at the site of Fanny's birthplace in Leytonstone, in the East End of London, describes her as "TV cookery expert Fanny Craddock (sic); born Phyllis Pechey".

Johnny Cradock was her fourth husband. Her first, in 1926, was Sidney Evans. For this marriage Fanny gave her name as Phyllis Nan Primrose Pechey. (Primrose Peachey seems to be another double–barrelled surname with no hyphen, this one passed down from her father's family.) Evans died in a plane crash just four months later, in February 1927, leaving her a widow at 18 (if not 17) and pregnant with their son Peter. By July 1928 she was pregnant again, and was obliged to marry the baby's father – Arthur William Chapman. For this marriage she used her mother's maiden surname: Sortain.

She left Chapman and their son Christopher less than a year later, but he (being a devout Catholic) refused to give her a divorce. In 1939 she entered into a third (bigamous) marriage – to Gregory Holden–Dye, a daredevil minor racing driver; but just eight weeks into this marriage she met 'the love of her life': John Cradock. She only married him in 1977, when she believed that Chapman (her legal husband) was dead – considering her third marriage to be unlawful because she'd still been married to Chapman when she entered into it. Chapman actually died the following year (1978); Johnnie Cradock died in 1987 (aged 82), and Fanny in 1994 (aged 85).