In my late thirties, nearing my darkest days as an alcoholic, I got a job as cook for Mr and Mrs Graham C Greene. He was the head of the publisher Jonathan Cape and the nephew of the writer. Their weekend house was in the old brewery on the Wotton Underwood estate. As my job came with a nice two-bedroom cottage in the old walled garden, it was a great deal better than falling asleep drunk in friends’ bathtubs. It had a small kitchen, but I had the run of the Greenes’ kitchen to cook whatever I wanted.

Wotton Underwood is near Thame, in Buckinghamshire, a flat and not particularly interesting part of the countryside. But the estate was lovely. The house had burnt down and been redesigned by John Soane in the 1820s, with a pavilion on either side. The design incorporated Soane’s wonderful use of light and space.

In the 1950s, it had been saved from demolition and lavishly renovated by a Mr and Mrs Brunner, whose family firm had merged with three others in 1926 to form the chemicals giant ICI. By the time I arrived, in the early 1980s, the ha-ha had been restored, and I was particularly impressed by a pair of splendid gates by Tissot. Mrs Brunner was living in the main house and Sir John Gielgud lived in the South Pavilion on the left of the house. The one on the right, a mirror image, was owned by a Swiss lawyer.

I often saw Gielgud. I couldn’t help admiring him. Every weekend, there’d be a different young man visiting – I’m sure they were all trainee actors. One day, when I was baking cakes, he came past the window, popped in and announced, in that wonderful voice of his: “Your cake smells so good, my dear.” As I was making a large batch, I asked if he would like one. He was delighted: “You’re most kind. Bring it in and have a glass of sherry.”So, of course, I went in. His house was very theatrical – full of memorabilia and photos of him in different productions. He’d say things like “Dear Larry Olivier gave me this”, then show me some prized possession.

Some years later, in early sobriety, I was driving around the area with a theatrical-designer friend who was keen to meet Gielgud. We knocked on the door, but, sadly, he was out. I was amused to read that the Blairs bought Gielgud’s house. I don’t expect they’ll be allowed to alter it - apart from changing the decoration and the drapes.

Cooking for the Greenes was relatively easy as I only had to do weekend dinner parties for their house guests. Take it from me, Friday- and Saturday-night meals for 12 are a lot less work than cooking 90 covers in a restaurant. The Greenes gave some memorable parties. When I took out the main course one time, I knew just about everybody around the table. They were all lawyers and barristers I’d studied with years before.

I remember Ann Mallalieu QC [Baroness Mallalieu], a friend from the Bar, saying: “Clarissa, what are you doing here?” I told her I was the cook. My employers were surprised I was on first-name terms with so many of their guests.

During the week, I sometimes went to look at the chapel in the grounds. There were a couple of memorial plaques that amused me – presumably from a son about his mother. One epitaph read “Religious but without enthusiasm”; the other was “Charitable but without generosity”. That more or less says it all, doesn’t it?

The countryside is not a quiet place to live. Wotton Underwood was bloody noisy, with the sounds of foxes in the grounds and starlings nesting in the eaves of my cottage. Sometimes, in spring, the chicks would fall out and I’d accidentally tread on them. In the dark, the foxes were quite scary. Driving up the lane at night, you’d see pairs of red eyes staring out. Mrs Brunner, thinking she was being humane, would never let the hunt through, so the foxes were constantly digging up the earth, looking for things to eat. They even ate a peahen and her eggs. The poor widowed peacock kept calling out for a mate, but, of course, none ever came.

After 18 months of working for the Greenes, I reached rock bottom with my drinking. The final straw was when Mrs Greene had picked masses of fruit and left a large pot of raspberries and sugar on the stove. She probably asked me to keep an eye on it, but I was too far gone. The pot bubbled over, spilling boiled jam onto the quarry tiles. I went down on my hands and knees, trying to clean up the sticky, burnt mess, saying: “Dear God, I simply can’t go on.” I was fired and carted off by the police for a Breath-alyser test I don’t remember taking.

Clarissa’s Comfort Food (Kyle Cathie £19.99) and Spilling the Beans (Hodder & Stoughton £7.99) are both out now

Explore Property

• Buying & Selling

• New Homes

• Overseas

• Interiors

• Investment

• Gardens

• Cool In Your Code

• Specials

• First-time buyer

Times recommends

• Second homes: credit crunch casualty or money-spinner?
• How I built my own sliding house
• Top 10 incentives for house buyers