Cassandra Jardine Prize
Bryony Gordon on the woman who inspired her
For the 23 years that Cassandra Jardine worked at the Telegraph, she was the lynchpin of the features desk, the woman to whom editors turned to transform their pig’s ears into silk purses and her fellow writers would turn to for sage advice on everything from culinary conundrums to relationship troubles. Jardine could
fire off two articles in a day when others struggled to get through one, and she would do all this having first got up at 5am to buy fresh ingredients for dinner from New Covent Garden market and pack her five children off to school.
She was a whirling dervish, a firecracker, a mother, journalist and campaigner who would occasionally wash her hair in the bathroom sink at work. To this day, as I wrestle with a tricky turn of phrase (or toddler), I still catch myself wondering what Cass would do, and moreover how she did it.
“Please skip this paragraph if domesticity bores you,” she wrote once, “but my morning routine is: shop, empty dishwasher and washing machine; hang up washing; put urgent stuff in dryer. Cook breakfast, feed pets, pack lunches, get something from freezer for dinner. Shout: ‘You’re late’, jump in car, chase school bus. Fill dishwasher, wipe surfaces, empty compost bucket, thank my husband for walking the dog, argue with child over forgotten PE kit. Hunt for shoes, do second school run, replace nightie with vaguely clean outfit. Rush to work.”
In the office, the sound of her fingers hitting the keyboard was like artillery fire, pieces written masterly in between phone calls fielded from children stranded in Morocco with no money. Cass had the incredible ability to create calm out of absolute chaos, which is why she was such a fine journalist, and an award-winning one at that. She wrote two books on parenting. She was brilliant at juggling things.
A colleague noted that at any one time on her desk you could find: “a rolled bathing costume in a towel, green tea, toothpaste, two pairs of trainers, fruit, letters from strangers asking or offering advice to a person with whom they felt so strong a connection.”
Even when Cass was diagnosed with lung cancer in the summer of 2010, she seemed cheery, defiant. That winter she spoke at The Telegraph’s Christmas service for half an hour, with no notes, about the three charities she had worked so hard to choose for our festive appeal.
The pieces she wrote about her condition were poignant in their lack of self pity. Hospital was “a bore”, the drain in her lung “a nuisance” that spoiled her dress. “Some people’s straight hair grows back curly after chemotherapy,” she wrote at one point. “I find that my backhand has improved.”
After her death in May 2012 at the young age of 57, her friend Polly Samson recalled that “there was no end, it seemed to me, to her energy or to her kindness. I remember once she came home from work, mildly irritated that she had forgotten to defrost the shoulder of lamb for the 16 people who were coming to supper that night. Later, as we were clearing up, she said: ‘Oh, perhaps we should leave this for now. You need to get to bed and I’d better read through a few cuts before my interview tomorrow.’” The interview was with Princess Anne.
In 2013, together with Cass’s husband, actor William Chubb, The Telegraph launched the Cassandra Jardine Memorial Prize. Open to women aged between 18 and 25, it sought creativity and potential in an original feature.
It seemed a fitting way to honour a woman who helped so many other women as they started out in journalism. Since its inception, its winners have included a nurse who wrote about frantically trying to save a stranger’s life, and a student who shared memories of a childhood visit to Syria. Last year’s winner, Nell Whittaker, wrote about the The Receiver of Wreck. One runner-up has gone on to pen a column on a national newspaper.
Cass wanted more than anything for young women to have the chance to be heard. This is a rare opening in a highly competitive industry, and one worth going for.
So if you fulfil the entry criteria (messy desk not necessary), the floor is yours. Over to you, young women of Britain. We look forward to reading your entries.
‘Cass had the incredible ability to create calm out of absolute chaos’