Elizabeth Ayrton
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Elisabeth Evelyn Ayrton (née Walshe; 2 February 1910 – 15 November 1991) was a British novelist and writer on cookery.


Life

Elisabeth Evelyn Walshe was born in
Worplesdon Worplesdon is a village NNW of Guildford in Surrey, England and a large dispersed civil parish that includes the settlements of: Worplesdon itself (including its central church area, Perry Hill), Fairlands, Jacobs Well, Rydeshill and Wood S ...
,
Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...
, England in 1910. She was the daughter of the novelist Douglas Walshe and the writer Phyllis Sydney. She and her two siblings lived in Worplesdon Elisabeth was married twice, firstly in 1933 to the novelist Nigel Balchin. She had met him while she was reading English, Archaeology and Anthropology at
Newnham College, Cambridge Newnham College is a women's constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sidgwick and suffragist campaigner Millicen ...
.Justine Hopkins, ‘Ayrton, Elisabeth Evelyn (1910–1991)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 201
accessed 16 January 2017
/ref> Their first child, Prudence Ann, was born in 1934. Penelope Jane Balchin was born in 1937, and later gained fame as childcare expert Dr Penelope Leach. During the war Elisabeth worked for the
Special Operations Executive Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a British organisation formed in 1940 to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in German-occupied Europe and to aid local Resistance during World War II, resistance movements during World War II. ...
, vetting recruits for secret overseas missions. Their youngest child, Freja Mary Balchin, was born in 1944. Elisabeth's first marriage ended following an affair with composer Christian Darnton,Collett, Derek (2015)
''His Own Executioner: The Life of Nigel Balchin''
SilverWood. .
and later a partner-swapping arrangement between the Balchins, the artist
Michael Ayrton Michael Ayrton (20 February 1921 – 16 November 1975)T. G. Rosenthal, "Ayrton , Michael (1921–1975)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2008Retrieved 24 Jan 2015/ref> was a British pai ...
and his partner, Joan. Balchin divorced Elisabeth in 1951 and she married Ayrton a year later. After her marriage she started to write. She submitted pieces successfully to various magazines, her poetry was read on BBC radio and she contributed to ''
Woman's Hour ''Woman's Hour'' is a radio magazine programme broadcast in the United Kingdom on the BBC Light Programme, BBC Radio 2, and later BBC Radio 4. It has been on the air since 1946. History The first BBC programme for women was the programme cal ...
''. Her first novel, ''The Cook's Tale'' (entitled ''Sauce and Sensuality'' in the USA) was published in 1957. She wrote three further novels: ''The Cretan'' (entitled ''Silence in Crete'' in the USA) in 1963, ''Two Years in My Afternoon'', (1972) and ''Day Eight'' (1978). Her archaeological book ''The Doric Temple'' was published in 1957. Her second husband, Michael Ayrton, died in 1975 and thereafter she combined writing with travelling, running an antiques business and handling his work.


Cookbooks

It was her cookery books that made her name. Ayrton authored her first, ''Good Simple Cookery'', in 1958 (revised 1984). ''Time is of the Essence'' followed in 1961. ''Royal Favourites'' (1971) was her third cookery book and the first in which she places the recipes in their historical context. ''Cookery of England'' (1974) and ''English Provincial Cooking'' (1980) continued this combination of history and cookery, as did ''Traditional British Cooking'', co-authored with Theodora FitzGibbon in 1985. She also wrote ''The Pleasure of Vegetables'' (1983).


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ayrton, Elisabeth 1910 births 1991 deaths Writers from Surrey 20th-century British novelists Alumni of Newnham College, Cambridge British cookbook writers British Special Operations Executive personnel British women novelists Elisabeth 20th-century British women writers English food writers