Landing eventually in Sydney after calling at places like Guadeloupe and the Marquesas, Taihiti and Moorea, Vanuatu and Noumea , they stayed for a while with Arthur Johnson; Arthur then being Prue’s father’s accountant and soon to marry the same Frances (Duke).
Lucie then worked at dressmaking in Double Bay while Charlie took a job in Arnott’s biscuit factory, but their first job together was managing a pub in Melbourne – ‘Hatter’s Castle’ in South Yarra - and later a large restaurant in a chain called ‘Peanuts’. It was there that Lucie’s commercial cooking career began as they lost a chef without notice and, in what was to become her typical style, Lucie took over.
And they soon started their family. In fact when Prue and I got married in Sydney in December 1971, Lucie was only a couple of weeks away from having Naomi, who was born in January 1972.
At Cobbetts, Lucie
took charge of the kitchen, working alongside and managing the chefs and
choosing the menus. In the interregnums between chefs or when they simply
didn’t turn up, Lucie of course took over the cooking herself. She had a natural talent for cooking and developing
the French regional recipes she had learned from her mother. Her dishes became famed locally and
earned the restaurant high marks in the Good Food Guide and other publications.
Her ‘soupe de poissons’ and virulent ‘rouille’ stood out, as did special ‘soirees
gastronomique’ and private parties.
It was 1974 too
that the Skipwith family moved from Studwell Lodge to Greywell and Lucie (and
of course Charlie) found themselves managing the restaurant, looking after
their own family and increasingly also Charlie’s parents as they got older. The
children, now consisting of Naomi, Alissa (1975) and Georgie (1979, went to Mrs
Barber’s at Hill Head, the late and somewhat lamented Rookesbury and then to St
Swithun’s. There was an enormous amount of driving for both of them in those
years. Once she broke her knee in a car accident and was in plaster for some
time, but that hardly slowed her down. They had help on occasion from her
brother Prosper who became an honorary Brit just as Lucie had herself, and for
a while they employed the marvellous Nanny Reid, who helped look after most of
our children in the 70’s, but Lucie’s incredible energy and dedication became
evident to all who knew her. She used to organise bike rides along the Hamble
and picnic trips to the sea. She also loved camping, despite her early experiences
with Charlie in Italy, and would set up camp anywhere. She wasn’t one to stick
to the rules, nor was she interested in things you had to buy. She always
thought that doing things yourself brought you much more valuable experiences.
Lucie was faced with some difficult situations in the restaurant when Charlie was away. Once she had to fight off a thief during the lunch service by spraying him with a fire extinguisher and then holding him up with an air pistol. Apparently the thief said to her ‘That won’t hurt’, to which she replied, ‘That depends on where I shoot you!’ On another occasion two enormous drunks came into the bar fighting and started breaking the place up and there was even blood on the walls. Naomi called the police while Lucie chased one of them out through the kitchen shouting at him in French, which probably terrified him more than anything!
Then in 1989 a friend, Dr Milligan, who had acquired a double-decker bus to take to race meetings, allowed Charlie and Lucie to become part owners and extend their business by fitting it out as a mobile restaurant and serving lunches to the likes of De La Rue on the rooftop tables. In 1984 they visited Twickenham and took the bus to Le Mans with Spice Racing. They enjoyed it so much that in 1996 they acquired a much bigger vehicle, an American Motorhome, to cater to the race teams such as GTC Gulf McLaren at events throughout Europe. They developed that business so well that by 1995 they sold Cobbetts, and took on full-time race meeting catering until 2003. This was even harder work than the restaurant, with the cooking being carried out under testing conditions, for instance at Le Mans when the drivers and pit crew required feeding at 2am and again at breakfast as well as throughout the day for ten days at a time. Lucie was quoted in a Sunday Times article as saying ‘They want it and they want it fast!’ They used to feed 84 people at 12 tables of seven under an awning erected on astroturf with fresh flowers on each table. The girls all helped in their holidays and the family lived in the motorhome with a kitchen a trailer behind, but Lucie loved watching the start of each race. In 2000 they sold up in England and moved to France.
In 1988, at Lucie’s request, her brother Prosper had found them an old farmhouse, Le Cros, about ten miles from Creon where she had grown up. It was a day’s drive from the Channel ports, three hours from skiing and two hours from the beaches and 20 mins from Lucie’s mother. Charlie and Lucie developed this into a lovely family home and when they moved to it full time in 2000, they ran it as a B&B, where Lucie could also give cooking lessons. This proved very successful and they were often full, with cycling tours and numerous individual guests. She had developed an amazing ability to whip up a superb meal in next to no time whether the guests arrived at 9pm or 2am, and her cooking lessons, when she would also take guests to the local market to buy the ingredients, were much prized.
As well as the
B&B, Le Cros was indeed a lovely family home. Lucie was the perfect
homemaker, her energy and determination creating a wonderful warm environment
for the family. She was brilliant at home renovation and was very creative –
and she did as much as she could herself, hating to call in help. She was
‘debrouillade’ - meaning that she was always naturally inventive and resourceful. Not only did she
make things like curtains and cushions, but when Naomi and Georgie got married,
she used her dressmaking skill to make their wedding dresses and the
bridesmaids dresses.
Naomi had married
Nick here in Droxford in 1999, while Georgie married Simon in France in
2007. Simon’s first introduction to
Lucie was a blind foie gras tasting – two bought-in and one of hers - which
fortunately he passed, otherwise he would have had to face the ultimate
challenge - a plate of ‘Lamproie a la Bordelaise’! Both Nick and Simon adored
her and fitted perfectly into the family, and many happy times (usually most of
each August and many Christmases) were spent all together at Le Cros where Simon’s
skill at mixing margaritas was frequently called upon in the tasting room.
In 2005, Naomi and Nick had her first grandchild, and Lucie became an adored grandmother to Freddie and then to Florence, born to Georgie and Simon, followed by William in London and Henry in New York. Lucie was indefatigable with her grandchildren and came and helped look after them when ever she could – and in the case of Georgie, thrice dropped everything when nanny arrangements fell through and spent weeks in New York and she even found time to make yards of bunting for Florence. She embraced American culture and food and was even seen tackling a ’15 bite hot dog’! She was also able to indulge her passion for art and culture and was an avid lover of opera. She used to spend at least 15 minutes at each of her favourite paintings at the Museum of Modern Art. One visit in 2011 included a wonderful tour of the West Coast with Charlie as well, and many wonderful photos exist of the family moving about in huge white ‘SUV’ and taking in all the great sights.
Of course, there were also many holidays spent skiing with family and friends – usually at La Clusaz - where they went for more than twenty years. Lucie was a good and enthusiastic skier and enjoyed the break from cooking. She and Charlie also went on several sailing holidays in Greece and Turkey.
In 2007 Lucie suffered a serious illness, and although she recovered and carried on working as hard as ever, her immune system had been seriously weakened. In the last couple of years she and Charlie had decided to wind down their strenuous daily B&B activities and let the house out as a whole for a week or longer while they themselves lived in the ‘gite’ and took things a bit easier. She had become a keen gardener and Charlie constructed four large ‘potagers’ for her herbs and vegetables, while she herself worked in the greenhouse far into the night pricking out seedlings, with her radio playing classical music beside her.
Lucie also found time to be very interested in history, particularly English history (which perhaps is explicable by the fact that she came from Aquitaine…). In fact she loved the English way of life such as pubs and the Sunday papers.and was looking forward greatly to spending more time in England following Nick and Naomi’s purchase of their house in Bishop’s Waltham. But sadly she fell ill early last year and on her last visit here in August/September she was already very unwell. Charlie took her back to Le Cros and then to hospital in Bordeaux and visited her daily with great devotion. Naomi, Alissa and Georgie joined Charlie as often as they could but had to watch helplessly as she declined from a combination of intractable diseases that her weakened immune system couldn’t cope with.
Lucie’s funeral was at Cursan, the setting of her childhood, on a bright December day. The event was beautifully managed and in addition to her sisters Therese and Mireille, her brother Francois , Prosper and their spouses and children, the village and many friends attended. It was a traditional service very like the one we are having here and her close friend Nicole, who has come over for this one, gave a beautiful address. Following the church service, Lucie was cremated in Bordeaux and we were all greatly moved when the music included an echo of Charlie and Lucie’s courtship when ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ was played.
Despite the tragedy of her early death, her funeral was not all somber. There was a short delay at the beginning as one of the drivers of the cortege went off with the keys of the hearse in his pocket; leading some to smile at Lucie (who was always late for everything) being late for her own funeral. There was also the case of the posthumous speeding tickets on Lucie’s Renault Clio, which Charlie was about to send back to the authorities with a sharp note, before Simon owned up to having made a rather swift run in it up to St Emilion and back. Lucie had also posthumously acquired three points on her licence, leading to the thought that if Simon had done much more driving, she might have lost it altogether.
Four months have passed since Lucie died and we have come together here in Droxford to honour and celebrate her life and memory. And although that time has passed, it’s still difficult to realise that she’s not still with us. She was much loved by everyone and her determination and energy was greatly admired by those who were close to her. She was completely devoted to her family but extended her love and care to all those around her.
Georgie has written:
From a very young age I used to watch my mother and wonder how someone could always be so thoughtful of others all of the time. Just the small things like always making sure everyone else was taken care of first, serving out the best to others and making do with whatever was left for herself. She was always trying to make sure that everyone was happy. It was something I used to watch carefully from a small child's perspective on life and felt so lucky to be so loved.
I think that is my abiding memory of Lucie too, as the completely unselfish centre of one of the happiest and most united families I know.
Herry Lawford
Droxford Church
10th April 2015
