Cookery writer Marguerite Patten dies aged 99

Cookery writer and media home economist Marguerite Patten has died aged 99.

Patten died on 4 June from what her family called "an illness stoically borne". She had suffered a stroke in 2011. The writer of over 170 book titles, with sales reaching 17 million copies worldwide, Patten had also established a career as an event speaker, and media personality on television, radio, and in print.

She was much decorated throughout her life, having been awarded an OBE in 1991 for services to the art of cookery, and a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 2010 for services to the food industry.

She also won lifetime achievement awards from the Guild of Food Writers in 1995; the Trustees of the André Simon Memorial Fund in 1996; the BBC Good Food Lifetime Achievement Award in 1988; the Waterford Wedgwood Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999; and the Women of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007.

Having been a regular contributor on BBC radio show Woman's Hour, she had her own radio show on BBC Radio 4 in 1999, appeared on This is Your Life in 2000, and in 2001 was interviewed for the long-running BBC radio programme Desert Island Discs.

She also acted as a judge on BBC television programme MasterChef and often appeared on Ready Steady Cook.

Born in Bath on 4 November 1915, Patten's life and career took her to High Barnet, London, East Anglia and central London. She lived in Brighton until 2011, before moving to a residential nursing home near her daughter in Richmond, Surrey. Her husband Bob died in 1997.

She is survived by her sister Elizabeth who lives in Oslo, her daughter Judith, her great-grandson Luke, two step-grandchildren, five nieces and nephews, and eight grandnieces and nephews.

Her funeral is set to take place on Monday 22 June at Mortlake Crematorium and is open to everyone, with the family accepting donations to various charities including the Anthony Nolan Trust.