How to summarise Mary Berry? National treasure, inspirational cook. Yes, of course. But there’s more. Dame Mary is as strategically driven as any business tycoon. It’s just that we don’t consider white-haired ladies who love to cook in this sort of way, especially one who was paid a mere £4.75 for one of her very first TV appearances, demonstrating the principles of a freezer.
I first met her 31 years ago when she was plain Mrs Berry and I attended an Aga cookery course at her home. Three decades on, she’s as beady as ever, inspecting what she’s about to wear and complimenting her assistant on her pink jumper. She’s filmed a new six-part series, Mary at 90: a Lifetime of Cooking, in which she looks back at her long career on television, as well as concocting modern twists to some of her own favourite recipes, with six famous faces, including Jamie Oliver, Gabby Logan and Tom Allen.
She is also a culinary time capsule, noting (and using) the advent of five spice, fennel, fresh ginger. She can pinpoint the arrival of tin foil. “I was working for Home and Freezer Digest, and I remember the editor coming in and saying, ‘Look what’s arrived from America!’ The first thing we said was, ‘Do we use the shiny side or the dull side? Does it matter?’”
Looking back at the archive footage, it’s clear that TV chefs today don’t know how lucky they are. Mary recalls her first appearance in the mid-70s on Good Afternoon, ITV’s magazine show, in which she was to demonstrate the principles of a freezer. “I wrote a book for Marks & Spencer about how to freeze things well, because if you put something in the freezer which is grotty, it will come out grotty.
After her initial invitation, Mary became a regular, standing alongside Chalmers, showing viewers how to cook. She could hardly have known it, but her first job for the Electricity Board in Bath, demonstrating how electric ovens can create the perfect sponge, was ideal training.
Watching herself back, Mary is helpless with laughter. “My voice! It was so high-pitched. But I had one aim. And that was to get people to cook and enjoy it as much as I did.” Recipes would be provided for viewers, but only ones who bothered to send in that historical artefact, a stamped addressed envelope. “Ask young people today what an SAE is, and they just look at you,” she marvels. As for brand Berry, was there a specially curated look? Zero attention. “There was no make-up. No wardrobe. You just arrived in your own clothes. And I would bring in daisies I’d picked from the garden.”
Later, when Bake Off moved to Channel 4 in 2017, she stayed with the corporation. “I feel very cherished by the BBC, and it was quite right I stayed with them,” she says. And so, Mary’s TV career continued, with series such as Classic Mary Berry and a plethora of Christmas specials.
She regrets her parents weren’t around to see her being made a Dame at Windsor Castle in 2021. “I am a great believer in genes. And my father was a remarkable man. My parents set an amazing example to me. When I found that I was going to be made a Dame, I couldn’t ring and tell them, but they are up there and looking down on me, and I know they’re quite pleased,” she says, smiling. “Your own children don’t notice, of course.”
Mary enjoys a positive attitude, which helped following the death of her son William, who was killed aged 19 in a car crash in 1989. It was after this tragedy that she started teaching Aga courses at her home, although I recall there was no indication that she had been bereaved. She was just as charming and chirpy as she is today. Perhaps the whole routine helped keep up her morale.
She says the recipe for her marital success is that she steps out of the house when she can see an argument brewing. “Paul always says that the secret to our long marriage is his saying, ‘Yes, dear’ to everything, and then going his own way. But we don’t argue. If any disagreements come up, I open the back door and just go out and maybe pick some flowers or get some apples. It’s amazing if you can walk away.
“Of course, if I was living in a top-floor flat, that would be difficult. But we respect each other. And I’m very lucky. He has mellowed in his old age and he’s become very appreciative of me. So I look after him, and it’s a great pleasure. That’s what I promised to do. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer. And we are very happy in our dotage.”
Which of her guests learnt the most from cooking with her? “Oh, Alan Titchmarsh,” she says immediately. “We made spaghetti with salmon, and he hadn’t a clue. But he was so keen. To me, the huge reward was that 10 days after we recorded the show, he sent me an email with a picture of a table, all laid with the pasta dish and a glass of red wine. He said, ‘I did exactly what you said, and I’m very proud of this.’”
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