Busy Blanc misses his girl’s big day

SHE is the woman who helped create one of Britain’s best-known restaurants together with her husband, chef Raymond Blanc. But the hugely successful business destroyed their marriage.

Now, 27 years after Jenny Blanc left him, Raymond’s workaholic lifestyle has again cast a shadow over the family.

Jenny’s daughter Emma, who was raised by Raymond and took his name, found he was too busy to give her away when she got married in Barbados.

‘He was going to come but then he cancelled,’ says mother- ofthree Jenny, who was married to the irrepressible Michelin-starred chef for 12 years when he was starting out in his career.

It was Emma’s second wedding and happily her 18-year-old son Dylan from her first marriage agreed to stand in for Blanc.

Emma married Caribbean-based landscape gardener Russell Corrie, who works mainly on the island of Mustique — his clients include rocker Bryan Adams and retail king Tommy Hilfiger.

‘It was a great shame Raymond couldn’t be there and Emma was disappointed but it is typical of Raymond,’ says Jenny, who now runs a successful interior design business in Barbados and London.

‘He always was too busy — on this occasion he was working on his new TV programme. I phoned Raymond to remonstrate but he won us all round by sending a generous financial gift. He lives a crazy life.’

It was Jenny who helped Blanc first set up the iconic Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons at Great Milton, Oxon, after their marriage in 1976. He had arrived in Britain from France as a waiter and his first job was with Jenny’s parents, who ran a Cotswolds hotel. Jenny mortgaged her own house to fund their first solo effort.

Success, however, spelled disaster for their marriage.

‘We ended up as business partners not marriage partners and that was the finish of it,’ says Jenny, who had Emma by a previous marriage. ‘But Raymond brought up Emma from the age of two.’

Blanc could not be contacted last night.