The actor on his mum’s cheese sauce, homemade cocktails with his wife, and having dinner with Falstaff
When I was young, whenever my mother [Prunella Scales] cooked kippers and the smell would drift through the house, it meant my father [Timothy West] was home, which he frequently wasn’t. Nowadays we probably only have kippers for Christmas breakfast, with a glass of champagne and orange juice.
My mother was a war baby, grew up with rationing, so was always very good with leftovers. She made a great cheese sauce, to add to chicken to great effect; less successfully to goose. So “cheesy goose” became a byword for things that shouldn’t be recycled in our house. But I remember her French onion soup and coq au vin. She had a French boyfriend when young. I think her idea of what great cooking involves has always been French.