The obstinate grandmother who lured Jamie Oliver to Cornwall

The Times

By Simon de Bruxelles

IT WAS not the golden sand, crashing surf or the lure of the West Country that persuaded Jamie Oliver to set up his latest restaurant on a Cornish beach. It was a 66-year-old grandmother who refused to take no for an answer.
Among the hundreds of guests at the launch party for Oliver’s restaurant Fifteen was Betty Hale. For two years Mrs Hale pestered the chef, saying that Cornwall had all the ingredients to make it the ideal location for his first branch outside London. Fifteen was set up by Oliver as a charity to put under-privileged young people in the kitchen to learn a trade and earn self-respect.

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