Former cookery show presenter celebrates her 90th birthday
THE FORMER presenter of a long-running Yorkshire Television cookery show and amateur dramatics stalwart celebrated her 90th birthday.
Grace Mulligan was the second host of Farmhouse Kitchen and has been the president of Goole Operatic and Dramatic Society (GODS) for more than 40 years.
After the death of Dorothy Sleightholme, Mrs Mulligan took over hosting duties on the weekday show, which aired between 1971 and 1990.
She welcomed guests including Mary Berry and Rick Stein as their careers were still getting started.
Mrs Mulligan said: “We rehearsed in my kitchen all week and did a mass of preparation.
“Then we brought it all over to the Yorkshire Television studios in Leeds and did it all over again.
“We really taught people how to cook properly and we did so without using a single swear word.”
Originally from Dundee, Mrs Mulligan was greeted along with about 90 guests by Bagpipe Major David Waterton-Anderson, who was in full Highland dress, at her party at the Junction in Goole.
Members of the GODS performed a musical interlude featuring songs from its shows over the years.
They were also joined by her grandson Arlo Mulligan-Vassell, 12, who sang Tomorrow from Bugsy Malone, as well as her sonin-law Kevin Jones.
Allan Humble, chairman of GODS, proposed a toast to Mrs Mulligan and the piper played
Amazing Grace as the birthday cake was cut.
Committee member Jean Williams told guests about how Mrs Mulligan was signed up as a member of the society by Doreen Chappel while they were sheltering from the rain outside the old
Goole Times offices. She has been its president ever since.
She and her late husband Brian moved to Goole in 1952 and then to Hook in 1956, where their four children were brought up.
She recently moved close to the Minster in Howden.