Cast Iron Ranges How AGA Became an Icon
Perhaps this is why he enjoyed
such a varied and colourful career, which included
working for the Hudson Bay Company, the India
Office and co-founding the Wine and Food Society,
before a quarrel with the then secretary caused him to
resign. His journalism began with a series of ‘casual
pieces’ submitted to, amongst others, e Times, News
Chronicle and the Yorkshire Post, before becoming
cookery correspondent for the Morning Post.
Ambrose Heath didn’t just write on the subject
of AGA cookery; he was a passionate AGA cook
himself. A 1933 AGA brochure stated: “For many
months now Mr Ambrose Heath has done his own
cooking and tested his professional recipes on an
AGA Cooker, and his enthusiasm is unbounded for
the AGA cooker’s cooking efficiency.
“He explains the various improvements made possible
by AGA cooking and the difference in method due to
the principle of AGA Heat Storage. He emphasises
especially the enormously increased leisure which the
AGA affords the Cook.”
In a 1939 brochure Heath speaks for himself:
“… I can say without exaggeration we have had much
better food since it was installed than ever before, the
reason being, I suppose, that it is
much easier to cook on. e AGA
seems to make one want
to cook…”
roughout the war years,
Heath was one of the main
voices of the BBC’s e
Kitchen Front. A series of talks
organised by the Ministry of
Food, Heath’s role was to
encourage frugality and ease
the hardship of rationing
with recipes, household
hints, exhortations from
government officials and
comedy. e themes
re-appear in 1946 in an
early Rayburn brochure.
e Kitchen Front was a platform to encourage the
population to make the most of meagre resources
and to keep healthy and its success lay mainly in its
homely and avuncular cast. e programme went
out at 8:15am every day and lasted five minutes.
e timeslot – widely considered to be a golden one –
was chosen as it was ‘before the housewife sets out to
do her shopping’.
Usually presented by Ambrose Heath and the popular
broadcaster Freddie Grisewood (known affectionately
as ‘Ricepud’) and contributed to by many, including
Marguerite Patten and Lord Woolton, it attracted up
to 14 million listeners, significantly more than any
other daytime talk programme.
In the first week alone the BBC received 1,000 letters,
along with parcels of cake and other gis from house-
wives responding to its tips. He had established an
AGA cookery tradition still continued today by,
amongst many others, Mary Berry, Lucy Young,
Amy Willcock and Louise Walker.
Heath’s later years were spent, with his much younger
wife Violet May, in Holmbury St Mary in Surrey, with
an AGA cooker and a flower garden, but no
vegetable garden. He died on 31 May 1969. q
AMBROSE HEATH
Ambrose Heath’s Good Food on the AGA
(left) featured beautiful illustrations by
Edward Bawden, well-known for his
work with Twinings, Shell-Mex and
Fortnum & Mason, as well as
renowned London Transport creatives
which included posters during the
1930s and tile motifs for London Underground.
One day a week Bawden worked for the Curwen
Press, so perhaps he was instrumental in the
decision to create menus and recipe cards
(below) from Good Food on the AGA, which
were printed by the same company. During the
Second World War, Bawden served as an official
war artist in France and the Middle East.
EDWARD BAWDEN
Painter
Designer
AGA cookbook
illustrator
Edward Bawden (1903–
1989) was a renowned
painter and designer.
His design tutor was the
artist Paul Nash, while
other contemporaries at
the Royal College of Art
included Barnett Freedman,
Henry Moore and Douglas
Percy Bliss, who was to be
his future biographer. Among
Bawden’s accolades were
his appointment as Royal
Designer for Industry (RSA)
in 1949 and his election as
a Royal Academician in
1956. He was awarded a
CBE in 1946.
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