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Patience Gray
Patience Gray, joint author of Plats du Jour
Patience Gray (1917-2005), née Stanham, was at Queen’s College, Harley Street, and read economics at LSE. She became a transcriptionist at the Foreign Office, then went to work as a secretary for Thomas Gray, whose name she took by deed poll; they had two children together before they parted. After the war she lived in Hampstead, worked at the Royal College of Art and translated the Larousse Gastronomique with Primrose Boyd (1913-82), née Hubbard, a painter who was married to the BBC producer Donald Boyd. The two of them formed a freelance research partnership and in 1957 published Plats du Jour. At the time it far outsold Elizabeth David’s books – 50,000 copies in the first year. The memorable drawings were some of the earliest published work by the now renowned painter and illustrator David Gentleman. From 1958-61 Patience was Woman’s Page editor for the Observer; she later made her home in Italy with Belgian sculptor Norman Mommens. Their life together is evoked in the sequel to Plats du Jour, Honey from a Weed (1986).
