I was 26 when I discovered I was pregnant. I was in Florence with my mum and my sister, taking a pregnancy test at eight in the morning, eyes barely open, insisting my mum hop on and off the hotel shuttle with me to buy more tests to make sure. One of my greatest joys in becoming pregnant was knowing how happy it would make her. Since I was 15, she had told me how excited she was to become a grandmother. She came to my scans. She was at my birth. I had no doubt she would be the most involved and brilliant grandmother imaginable.
I grew up primarily with my mum and my older sister, Holly, an all-girl household that wasn’t always stable but was always full of love. The three of us were indescribably close. My mum, the chef and restaurateur Skye Gyngell, was a workaholic in the most passionate sense. Her greatest loves were Holly and me, but work came a close second. She came to life in the kitchen or around produce. Any insecurities or hesitation vanished when she put on her chef’s whites. The kitchen was where she felt at her most free.
The late Skye Gyngell, left, and Evie Henderson at an event for Longchamp in February 2025 © Jason Lloyd Evans
From the beginning, she invited us into her creative world. Aged seven, I would sit in the Petersham Nurseries kitchen in Richmond (where she had her first head chef position) early on Saturday mornings and make mayonnaise with her. Later we worked on creative projects. The last was in February, when we curated a dessert table for a Longchamp event. She was already very sick then, and we both knew it might be the final time we would create something together. I hold that project very close to my heart.
