Caroline Waldegrave and Prue Leith: How we met

'I remember very distinctly the Cordon Bleu said: “You don't want to employ her. She's the naughtiest girl in school”'

Caroline Waldegrave and Prue Leith (Anna Huix)

Prue Leith, 75

Leith (right in picture) has been a Michelin-starred restaurateur, caterer and cookery writer. She founded cookery school Leiths School of Food and Wine in 1975, before selling it in 1993 to write novels: her seventh, 'The Food of Love: Book 1: Laura's Story', was published last month. She is also a judge on BBC Two's 'Great British Menu'. She has two children and three grandchildren, and lives in Oxfordshire

Back in the 1970s, I was looking for cooks for my catering company [Leith's Good Food]. Because I'd gone to Le Cordon Bleu, I thought I'd see what it had in the way of cooks then leaving. Caroline applied for a job and I rang up the Cordon Bleu. I remember very distinctly they said, “Caroline Burrows? You don't want to employ her.” I said, “Why on earth not?” And they said, “Well, she's the naughtiest girl in school.” My first impression was, oh my goodness – but we adored her.

She and a whole bunch of friends lived in… I wouldn't say it was a squat, but it was an overpopulated student flat – and gradually her various friends came to work for us. They were tremendous fun. I was much older than all of them – Caroline was 22 and I was 34 – but we became pretty good friends, and she rapidly became the head cook at my catering company.

I remember Caroline's attitude to the younger ones being so good. She was very firm about how things should be: the carrots need to be cut like this, and we do it that way. But on the other hand, she nearly always had an arm around some girl who was crying, and saying to her, “Don't worry, in three days you'll get used to it.” She was so comforting. She was extremely efficient and just brilliant.

She left to travel round America. While she was away, I missed her a lot and realised that what we needed to do was have a school so we could churn out some cooks who cook as Caroline and I do, which was influenced by the Cordon Bleu: good ingredients simply cooked.

I could tell that Caroline was the person to run it: she loved food, she was a very good teacher, she cared about people, she ran a happy ship. So I telexed her in America and said, “If I can set up a school will you come back and run it?” She said yes, and she did.

One of the reasons we stayed friends was that she belonged to the Vanderbilt tennis club, where Westfield [shopping centre] now is [in west London] and we used to play there a lot – she's a much better player than me.

I live in the Cotswolds, she lives down near Bath, so we don't see that much of each other now. I used to see her every week; now it's three or four times a year. The last time we played tennis together we played at Hidcote, the National Trust house, a celebrity match to celebrate the opening of an old 1920s court. I'd like to see more of her but, partly because we both work so hard, it's difficult.

Caroline Waldegrave, 63

As its founding principal and former managing director, Waldegrave co-owned Leiths from 1994 to 2009 with its current owner, Sir Christopher Bland. She now runs Dudwell Cookery School in Somerset. She is married to Conservative life peer Lord Waldegrave, the Provost of Eton College, and owns the Barley Mow pub in London's Marylebone with three of their four children

I was about 20 when I met Prue. I thought she was larger than life, wonderfully smiley and friendly and organised. And she seemed fantastically grown-up. I hadn't ever met anyone like her; she was so brave: she didn't have any doubts, she would just do things.

I got a job with her in 1971. She had a catering business based in the Barbican. I became head cook quite quickly and we realised that I was spending most of my time teaching the people who came in how to cook Prue's way. She had a very clear idea of what she wanted. Food in the early 1970s was lots of stuff in aspic and trying to emulate classic French cooking without either the skill or the ingredients, so Prue introduced the whole concept, really, of good ingredients simply cooked.

Because I found I was teaching people to cook rather than just running Prue's catering business, we decided to set up a school together. In fact, I ran it because she was in the process of adopting a baby from Cambodia, so she left it in my hands. She was really good at delegating, and very trusting.

Prue's husband was very involved in the business side and taught me masses about that sort of thing. The bookkeeping I learnt was the system we used until quite recently. And Prue taught me a lot about recipe-writing.

When we opened the school [in October 1975], I was 23 and on a building site in jeans. I think sometimes people would turn up and weren't quite sure what they were sending their daughters to. The amazing thing is how much it has evolved over the years. I think Jamie Oliver helped us a lot because he said it's OK for blokes to learn to cook.

I'm quite different to Prue. I'm probably more pedantic and she's much bolder and more exciting, which is why we worked well together. She can talk to anyone about anything and people automatically love her. She's courageous and she's fun, she's very warm and she's sympathetic. She's got all the qualities you need in a friend.

We see each other much less now. It's usually bound up with food in some way, so we'll meet for a meal. Our connection and our friendship is incredibly bound up with the work we did together. I'll go to her book launches and then we'll have supper after and that sort of thing, and she's been to see us at Eton and come down to Somerset. We just see each other less often because we're both living ridiculously busy lives. 1

Leiths School of Food and Wine is marking its 40th anniversary with a series of talks. For more information: 40.leiths.com