The World of Rosamunde Pilcher Read online

  1 tablespoon flour

  430 ml (3/4 pt) pheasant or chicken stock

  A bouquet garni

  Salt and pepper

  To complete

  140 ml (1/4 pt) single cream

  1 egg yolk, size 3

  Set the oven at Gas Mark 4/180°C/350°F. Joint each pheasant into four. Heat the oil and butter in a large, heavy, flameproof casserole. Brown the pheasant joints a couple at a time, drain and remove.

  Add the onion to the casserole and cook slowly until soft and golden. Add the bacon and celery and cook over medium heat until the bacon is golden brown and the celery softened. Stir in the flour, then the stock. Replace the joints, add the bouquet garni, season and bring to the boil. Cover and simmer gently in the oven for 1 to 1 1/2 hours until tender.

  Remove the pheasant joints to a warm serving dish. Bring the sauce to a rapid boil for 3 to 5 minutes until reduced and slightly thickened. Mix the cream and egg yolk. Add to the sauce off the heat. Reheat gently, stirring constantly. Don’t let the sauce boil or it will curdle. Taste and adjust the seasoning, then pour the sauce over the pheasant. Serve with noodles or rice.

  CREME BRULEE AND RASPBERRIES

  2 eggs

  2 egg yolks

  1 level tablespoon castor sugar

  1/2 pint double cream

  1/2 pint milk

  Vanilla pod

  Castor sugar

  1 can raspberries (Baxter’s, of course!)

  Cream eggs, yolks and sugar thoroughly. Warm cream, milk and vanilla pod in a double saucepan then stir in the egg mixture. Cook gently until custard thickens, but stir constantly to prevent curdling. Strain into a fireproof dish and leave for 2–3 hours to set. Carefully spread an even layer of castor sugar over the custard. Put under the grill until sugar melts and turns brown. Chill thoroughly before serving with raspberries. Tap caramel sharply with a spoon to serve.

  COUNTRY SEAT ON LOCH MONAR

  The last bend, and the house was revealed in its full glory, towering up against the dark backdrop of the sky. It looked enormously impressive and proud. Virginia said, “It must be feeling really good tonight.”

  “What must?”

  “Corriehill. Like a monument. In memory of all the dinner parties, and wedding feasts and dances and balls that it must have known in the course of its history. And christenings. And funerals too, I suppose. But mostly parties.”

  SEPTEMBER

  TRADITIONAL SCOTTISH REEL DURING THE ROYAL CALEDONIAN BALL

  “What would you like to drink?”

  “Have you any whisky?”

  “Of course. Grouse or Haig’s?”

  He could scarcely believe his luck. “Grouse!”

  “Ice?”

  “If you have some.”

  SEPTEMBER

  “It’s a hell of a dance, isn’t it?”

  Startled, Noel looked around and saw the man who stood beside him, come, presumably, to enjoy the spectacle, as he was.

  He said, “It certainly is. What is it they’re doing?”

  “The Reel of the Fifty-first Highland Division.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “It was devised in a German prison camp during the war.”

  “It looks extremely complicated.”

  “Well, why not? They had five and a half years to make the bloody thing up.”

  SEPTEMBER

  FOLLOWING PAGES: BRIDGE NEAR KILCHURN CASTLE ON LOCH AWE (ARGYLLSHIRE)

  Gibson took the road to Braemar by way of Tomintoul, driving south over the mountains and running down into the gold and sunlit valley of the Dee at about eleven o’clock. The river was in spate, deep and clear as brown glass, winding through fields and farmland and great stands of tall Scotch pine.

  THE END OF SUMMER

  LOCHABER, GLEN GARRY (HIGHLANDS)

  COUNTRYSIDE NEAR SCADABAY (ISLE OF HARRIS)

  “I love the colours of the moor because they remind me of the most beautiful tweed. All russets and purple, and larch-green and peat-brown. And I love the beautiful tweeds because they remind me of the moor. How clever people are to be able to emulate nature so perfectly.”

  SEPTEMBER

  FLOWERING HEATHER NEAR BALMORAL

  CLIMBING HUT ON RANNOCH MOOR (HIGHLANDS)

  QUEEN’S VIEW NEAR LOCH TUMMEL-SO-NAMED AS IT WAS THE FIRST VIEW QUEEN VICTORIA HAD OF THE LOCH

  She made her way to the foot of the garden, to stand by the gap in the hedge, looking out to the south, over the incomparable view. The glen, the river, the distant hills: sunless today, sombre, but beautiful. Always so beautiful. Never would she tire of them. Never would she tire of life.

  SEPTEMBER

  URQUHART CASTLE NEAR LOCH NESS

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Quotations were used from the following novels by Rosamunde Pilcher

  Flowers in the Rain, © 1991 by Rosamunde Pilcher First published in Great Britain in 1991 by Hodder & Stoughton, A division of Hodder Headline PLC

  The Shell Seekers, © 1987 by Rosamunde Pilcher First published in Great Britain in 1988 by Hodder & Stoughton, A division of Hodder Headline PLC

  September, © 1991 by Robin Pilcher, Fiona Wynn-Williams, Mark Pilcher and Philippa Imrie First published in Great Britain in 1990 by Hodder & Stoughton, A division of Hodder Headline PLC

  Wild Mountain Thyme, © 1978 by Rosamunde Pilcher First published in Great Britain in 1980 by Hodder & Stoughton, A division of Hodder Headline PLC

  The Blue Bedroom, © 1985 by Rosamunde Pilcher First published in Great Britain by Hodder & Stoughton, A division of Hodder Headline PLC

  The End of Summer, © 1971 by Rosamunde Pilcher First published in Great Britain in 1990 by Hodder & Stoughton, A division of Hodder Headline PLC

  Another View, © 1968 by Rosamunde Pilcher First published in Great Britain in 1990 by Hodder & Stoughton, A division of Hodder Headline PLC

  Sleeping Tiger, © 1967 by Rosamunde Pilcher First published in Great Britain in 1990 by Hodder & Stoughton, A division of Hodder Headline PLC

  The Empty House, © 1973 by Rosamunde Pilcher First published in Great Britain in 1990 by Hodder & Stoughton, A division of Hodder Headline PLC

  The Day of the Storm, © 1975 by Rosamunde Pilcher First published in Great Britain in 1975 by William Collins Sons & Co Ltd

  My Scottish Village: A Story by Rosamunde Pilcher, © 1992 by Rosamunde Pilcher

  First published in Meridian

  Coming Home, © 1995 by Robin Pilcher, Fiona Pilcher, Mark Pilcher, and the Trustees of Rosamunde Pilcher’s 1988 Trust

  First published in the United States by St. Martin’s Press

  We received hints and tips from the following books:

  Alison Symons: Tremedda Days. A View of Zennor, 1900–1944 (Padstow, Cornwall, 1992)

  Marion Whybrow: St. Ives 1883–1993. Portrait of an Art Colony (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1994)

  We would like to thank Rosamunde Pilcher for her help and co-operation. We would like to say a special thank you to all those who helped produce this book, especially: Flora Berryman; Laura, Paul and Erwin Brunner; Stanley Cock; Laurette de Smet; Steve Martin; Graham Pilcher; Mark Pilcher; Gerard Reunes; Constance and Michael Smith; Alison and Henry Symons; Marion Whybrow

  PICTURE CREDITS

  P 2 Marianne Majerus; p 5 map: Ditta Ahmadi, Berlin; p 5 top Steve Martin, middle Dirk Reinartz/Visum, bottom Mosler/Transglobe Agency; p 6 Jörg Modrow/Visum; p 8 Robert Harding Picture Library (RHPL); pp 9, 12, 15 Robert Lebeck/Stern; p 16 Martin Bosboom/Focus Film Frankfurt; p 19 Siv Bublitz; p 20 Hugh Palmer/RHPL; p 21 map: Ditta Ahmadi, Berlin; p 21 bottom Steve Martin; p 22 Rosamunde Pilcher (3); p 23 top left Rosamunde Pilcher, top right Alan J Curtis, bottom Steve Martin; p 24 top Rosamunde Pilcher, middle and bottom The Hulton-Deutsch Collection; p 25 The Hulton-Deutsch Collection (3); p 26 Alison Symons (2); p 27 top Rosamunde Pilcher, bottom Alison Symons; p 28/29 RHPL; p 30 Snowdon/Hoyer/Focus; p 31 Steve Martin; p 33 Transglobe Agency; p 34 Christopher Simon Sykes/The Interior World (TIW); p
35 top Ian Baldwin/RHPL (2), bottom left RHPL, bottom right George Ong/RHPL; p 36/37 S McBride/Stylograph; p 38 Schulenburg/TIW; p 41 Marianne Majerus; p 42/43 Marion Nickig; p 44 Marianne Majerus (2); p 45 top Marianne Majerus, bottom Stephen Robson/RHPL; pp 46, 47 Sheila Rock/ PhotoSelection; p 48/49 Robert Lebeck/Stern; p 51 Giovanni Simeone; p 52 Steve Martin; p 54/55 Giovanni Simeone; p 56 Collection of Penzance Museum & Art Gallery; p 58 © Courtesy of David Messum Gallery, London; p 59 top left Oldham Art Gallery, Lanes./photo: The Bridgeman Art Library, bottom left photo: Siv Bublitz, bottom right Newlyn Orion Art Gallery, Penzance/photo: Bob Berry; p 60 left photo: Steve Martin, right Taylor Gallery, London/photo: The Bridgeman Art Library; for Samuel John Lamorna Birch: © Newlyn Orion Art Gallery, Penzance; p 61 photo and © Peter Ward; p 62, 64, 65 Steve Martin; p 66/67 Jorg Reuther/Anne Hamann Agency; p 68 RHPL; p 70/71 Giovanni Simeone; pp 72, 73 Steve Martin; p 74/75 Snowdon/Hoyer/Focus; pp 76, 77 Steve Martin; pp 79, 80, 81 RHPL; p 82/83 Giovanni Simeone; p 84 Urs Kluyver/Focus; p 85 map: Ditta Ahmadi, Berlin; p 85 Dirk Reinartz/Visum; p 87 Jeremy Cockayne/Arcaid; p 88 Abode/Stylograph; p 91 Ian Baldwin/RHPL; p 93 top, and bottom right Patrick Ward/Network/Focus (3), bottom left David Levenson/Colorific.Focus; p 94/95 Roger Cracknell/S.O.A.; p 96 Schulenburg/TIW; p 98 Transglobe Agency; p 100 Marion Nickig; p 101 map: Ditta Ahmadi, Berlin; p 101 Mosler/Transglobe Agency; p 102 top and middle Rosamunde Pilcher, bottom Robert Lebeck/Stern; p 103 top Rosamunde Pilcher, middle Siv Bublitz, bottom Robert Lebeck/Stern; p 104/105 Giovanni Simeone; p 106 Dorothea Schmid/Bilderberg; p 108/109 Snowdon/Hoyer/Focus; p 111 Joachim Kopp/Transglobe Agency; p 112 Rolf Nobel/Visum; p 114 Brian Harrison/RHPL; p 115 Schulenburg/TIW; p 116 RHPL; p 119 Trevor Richards/RHPL; p 120 Schulenburg/TIW; p 123 Schulenburg/TIW; p 124 McBride/Stylograph; p 125 Christopher Simon Sykes/TIW; p 126 Robert Lebeck/Stern; p 127 top Robert Lebeck/Stern, bottom Martin Bosboom/Focus Film Frankfurt; p 128/129 Snowdon/Hoyer/Focus; pp 130, 131 Rolf Nobel/Visum; p 133 Christopher Simon Sykes/TIW; p 134/135 Yves Gellie/Odyssey/Focus (3), Book: Grafische Werkstatt Christian Kreher; p 136 top Rosamunde Pilcher, bottom Christopher Simon Sykes/TIW; p 139 Schulenburg/TIW; p 140 Ian Baldwin/RHPL; p 142 Schulenburg/TIW; p 144 David Levenson/Colorific/Focus; p 145 Grafische Werkstatt Christian Kreher; p 146/147 Giovanni Simeone; p 149 Joachim Kopp/Transglobe Agency; p 150 Karl-Heinz Raach/Look; p 151 W. Krecichwost/Transglobe Agency; p 152/153 Snowdon/Hoyer/Focus; p 154 Wolfgang Kunz/Bilderberg; p 156/157 Giovanni Simeone; p 159 Andor Graser/Jahreszeitenverlag.