‘She had fierce loves and was fiercely loyal’ — Maggie Beer tells of her family’s grief at losing daughter Saskia a year ago

A year on from the death of her beloved Saskia, Maggie Beer speaks about a daughter who carved her own career and ‘had fierce loves and was fiercely loyal’.

As Maggie Beer moves around her home kitchen, memories of her beloved daughter Saskia are always close at hand.

Treasured photos, such as the one of Saskia and younger sister Elli in fits of laughter at a restaurant table, are displayed by the fridge.

Next to that is an abstract painting Maggie found by chance at an exhibition.

In bold strokes, it depicts a farmer and a small child tending chickens, an image that captures perfectly the spirit of their early family life.

“It’s colourful and joyous and it’s like Sassie is always with us,” Maggie says of the artwork.

Saskia and Elli as children.

Other memories are still too painful. This weekend marks a year since Saskia’s sudden, devastating death at 46 and Maggie still has boxes of cards, letters, photographs and speeches Saskia made that she cannot bear to open yet.

Today, as she speaks about Saskia’s life and achievements, the pride in her daughter is obvious.

But so too is the profound sadness for those left behind, including her sister Elli and Saskia’s three children.

“I don’t know that any mother or father ever truly recovers,” Maggie says.

“But there will be a stage where the good memories and the love will overtake the loss.”

Maggie tells the story of a young girl determined to tread her own path who grew into a woman of great loyalty, a huge heart and terrific sense of humour.

Saskia, left, in 2003 with mum Maggie and sister Elli at Pheasant Farm in the Barossa Valley.

A woman who was a perfectionist and didn’t suffer fools. A woman admired for her hard work and deep thinking, particularly across the worlds of food and farming.

Those two worlds were part of Saskia’s life from an early age.

She grew up as Maggie and husband Colin were establishing their businesses on a property outside Nuriootpa in the Barossa Valley – Colin raising game birds such as pheasants, guinea fowl and quails, Maggie building a national reputation for her restaurant, Pheasant Farm.

The family lived in one large room on the farm and the girls would lend a hand.

Saskia helped look after the quails and collected their eggs.

Maggie recalls the first time Saskia cooked for her parents was when they were celebrating an anniversary of some kind.

“The girls brought in champagne for Colin to open and Sas made the most perfect scrambled eggs,” Maggie says. “She would have been six or seven.”

Maggie remembers her as “an old soul” who was something of a loner in her early school years.

“She was so clever and driven to the point where she was a perfectionist and if her work wasn’t perfect she didn’t want to hand it in,” Maggie says.

Saskia flourished, however, when she moved to high school at Trinity College and found teachers that she admired, some of whom became lifelong friends.

“She wrote beautiful poetry and had an amazing way with words,” Maggie says.

Maggie and Saskia in Maggie’s kitchen at Pheasant Farm.

“She could write her feelings in words in ways that sometimes she couldn’t express (in other ways).”

Saskia was a generous spirit from an early age.

“She would give everything away,” Maggie laughs.

“We would go to Adelaide and she would give any pocket money she had to the buskers. She always wanted to look after other people.”

Given her upbringing in and around a kitchen, it was no surprise that Saskia became a chef and caterer who has been responsible for many memorable feasts in the Barossa and beyond.

Her interest, however, soon expanded from simply cooking the food to understanding more about how it was raised.

She had for years been raising chickens on the family farm and researched the perfect diet working with Laucke’s, the local feed mills.

When the flock became too big, she found a grower who would follow her stringent conditions on how they were fed and cared for.

“She had a true entrepreneurial spirit,” Maggie says.

“She was a better businesswoman than Colin and I in lots of ways. But like me she would undertake something whether it made money or not. It was always about the idea. Everything had to be as good as it could be … forget the cost.”

Her insight from paddock to plate was recognised around the country and she was often asked to speak at conferences for farmers, though fronting a crowd wasn’t something that came easy to her.

“She was very sure of her world and her ability,” Maggie says, “but on the inside she was almost reclusive.”

Colin Beer, with Elli and Maggie at home on the farm. Picture: Pete Thornton

The same traits can be seen in her personal life, where she had incredibly strong bonds with family and friends but could seem abrupt on first impressions.

“Sas was a Scorpio. They are the most loyal, insightful people … but have a sting in the tail,” Maggie says.

“She wasn’t easy. She could be prickly. She had fierce loves and was fiercely loyal. And she didn’t suffer fools.”

The time prior to her death had seen Saskia become more settled and Maggie says she had found happiness with Petar Jercic, whom she married in 2019.

Last January, Maggie took the family to Noosa to celebrate her 75th birthday and the 50th anniversary of her wedding to Colin.

Maggie called in favours from her favourite producers and the family gathered each night around the table for a series of sensational meals.

It was only a few weeks later that Saskia died peacefully in her sleep.

Now, Maggie says, there is a gap at the table.

“Sassie had such humour. Her laughter would ring out. And so does Colin. They would all make me laugh at myself.”

Saskia’s name will live on. Saskia Beer Farm Produce continues to trade, with a stall at the Adelaide Farmers’ Market. Peter and Saskia’s daughter, Lilly, ensures that the original ethos is upheld.

And her family has decided to create the Saskia Beer Churchill Fellowship to help other bright minds in food and farming travel and develop their ideas.

“I think Sassie would be chuffed,” Maggie says.