by Joan Adeney Easdale
The life of Mrs. Tsabella Mary Beeton and the story of how the famous Cookery-Book came to be written
Produced by John Richmond
(Empire Programme)
One of the interesting things about this serious play on the life of Mrs. Beeton (it should not be confused with Meet Mrs. Beeton, du Garde Peach's skit broadcast in January, 1934) is how its youthful author came to write it. She was only twenty when she made up her mind to write a book about Mrs. Beeton-she used the famous cookery book and wanted to know something about its author. But nobody could tell her. Joan Easdate 's publishers (she was writing verse when she was fourteen) gave her an introduction to Sir Mason Beeton , Mrs. Beeton's son. He gave her all the help he could, but he was an infant when his mother died.
And so Joan Easdale started on her four years' search. At Pinner, trying to find Mrs. Beeton's first home after marriage, a road sweeper directed her to a butcher, who sent her to an undertaker, who sent her to the bedside of an old woman, who had actually known Mrs. Beeton. At Greenhithe, where Mrs. Beeton died in her twenty-ninth year, Joan met Gentleman Hoadly, who remembered her and said how very friendly she had been with everyone.
She found that four years' research more exciting than writing either the book or the play.