Making a meal out of a Sunday for all the family

The Sit Down Sunday campaign aims to get more families sitting down together and enjoying a special Sunday lunch.

It follows a survey for Sainsbury's Magazine which is launching the campaign, which revealed that 51 per cent of readers often skip Sunday lunch, with a shocking 14 per cent saying they rarely find time to eat together as a family.

The campaign is backed by Jamie Oliver and a host of other familiar faces including Wendy Holden who recently had lunch cooked for her and her family by chef Andrew Pern, from the Michelin-starred The Star at Harome.

"We often sit down with friends on a Sunday and make a special occasion out of Sunday lunch," explains Wendy, who now lives in Derbyshire with husband Jon and children Andrew, seven, and five-year-old Isabella.

"We go to the local butcher and get a really special piece of meat; we get all the best china out and make a bit of a fuss. There aren't that many opportunities any more for a bit of ceremony."

Wendy admits that she's not the best cook, and it is Jon who does much of the cooking – although she says she has recently mastered the art of the perfect roast potatoes.

"I was listening to a programme on Radio 4 on how to make the perfect roast potatoes, so I thought it would give it a try, and it worked perfectly," says Wendy, who has just completed her latest book, Gallery Girl, due to be published in August.

She may have mastered the roast potatoes, but Wendy says she will never have a go at Yorkshire puddings.

"As a woman from Yorkshire, there is just too much pressure on."

For Wendy and her family and friends, Andrew Pern cooked pork with crackling and "the most amazing" gravy.

"He left me some of his stock which I keep using to transform the most mundane of bangers and mash into something special."

As a child, Wendy recalls sitting down with her family for hearty roast dinners, although it was her grandma's Sunday lunches that she remembers most.

"She would always have a cloth on the table and cook a traditional Sunday lunch. She was blind, which made it all the more remarkable, although we just expected her to do it," says Wendy.

Other celebrities involved in the campaign include singer and television presenter Mica Paris, who is photographed enjoying a glamorous family brunch, cooked by Angela Hartnett, of the York and Albany restaurant, with her two daughters and friends.

While novelist Alexander McCall-Smith, author of the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, takes afternoon tea at his Edinburgh house, prepared by Mary Contini, of Valvona & Crolla, surrounded by friends and family.

Says Sainsbury's Magazine editor Helena Lang: "Families are under so much pressure it's often hard to find the time to talk. Finding that time on a Sunday gives everyone the chance to focus on each other.

"A meal anchors the occasion – whether it's an egg and bacon breakfast or roast with all the trimmings, it's guaranteed to get those you love around the table."