Linda Robson undertook four similar tasks. The Gwen Troake incident In 1976, a housewife in Devon, Gwen Troake, won a competition called "Cook of the Realm", leading to The Big Time inviting her to organise a banquet to be attended by Edward Heath, Earl Mountbatten of Burma and other VIPs. The BBC filmed the result as part of The Big Time, and asked Fanny Cradock, by then a tax exile in Ireland, to act as one of a number of experts giving Troake advice on her menu. The result brought the end of Fanny Cradock's television career. Mrs Troake went through her menu of seafood cocktail, duckling with bramble sauce and coffee cream dessert. Fanny, grimacing and acting as if on the verge of retching, claimed not to know what a bramble was, told Troake that her menu was too rich, and, though she accepted that the dessert was delicious, insisted that it was not suitable, declaring: "Yes, dear, but you're among professionals now." She suggested that Mrs Troake use a small pastry boat filled with a fruit sorbet and covered with spun sugar, decorated with an orange slice and a cherry through a cocktail stick, giving the dish the look of a small boat, which Fanny thought would be suitable for the naval guests. In the event, the dessert was a disaster and could not be served properly. Robert Morley had also been consulted on the menu and said he felt that Mrs Troake's original coffee pudding was perfect. When the dessert failed to impress, the public were annoyed that Fanny Cradock had seemingly ruined Mrs Troake's special day. The Daily Telegraph wrote "Not since 1940 can the people of England have risen in such unified wrath". Fanny wrote a letter of apology to Mrs Troake, but it was too late as the BBC terminated her contract two weeks after the programme was broadcast. She never presented a cookery programme again on the BBC. (Mrs Troake, by contrast, published A Country Cookbook the following year.) Speaking about the incident in 1999, Rantzen described Cradock as "hell on wheels", and that she had "reduced this poor little lady [Troake] to nothing". Episodes Series 1 Broadcast Thursday evenings on BBC1 at 9:25pm Series 2 Broadcast Thursday evenings on BBC1 at 9:25pm Series 3 Broadcast Wednesday evenings on BBC1 at 8:10pm In at the Deep End An almost identical series followed in