Great British Bake Off’s Mary Berry’s hospital stay after serious injury

Former Great British Bake Off judge and baking icon Mary Berry has opened up about her time in hospital after suffering a serious injury at home. 

Just last week Mary Berry was given the ultimate honour from Prince Charles as she officially became a Dame Commander of the British Empire. Often considered a national treasure, Mary’s decades of experience and hard work in the cooking industry were celebrated with this significant accolade. Having started her food career as Cookery Editor of Housewife Magazine in the 1960s, Mary Berry’s recipes continue to inspire cooks. 

Meanwhile, her broadcasting career has seen her judge on everything from The Great British Bake Off to Britain’s Best Cook. But whilst last week’s Damehood presentation was a source of great excitement for Mary, it seems that life has been more than a little challenging recently. 

As reported by Hello!, Dame Mary explained to the Daily Mail’s Weekend magazine that she’d previously broken her hip after tripping over some bricks whilst picking sweet peas in her garden. After her husband of 55 years Paul was unable to hear her cries for help as he watched the cricket, it was her son-in-law Dan who came to the rescue and called an ambulance. 

She told the publication, “He saw me and said, 'I’ll get an ambulance.' I said, 'Oh, no, I’m fine,' but he overruled me.” 

But though Dan called straight away, due to the timing of Mary’s accident on a busy Sunday afternoon, the GBBO star revealed it took almost four hours for the ambulance to arrive, though she reflected upon how this was “quite right”.

She said, "He rang for the ambulance and they said, 'We’re very, very busy.' It was Sunday afternoon and there were lots of football injuries and whatever. We waited for three-and-a-half hours, until 6pm, and quite right too! I was perfectly happy. I quite understood that they were busy and Dan was caring for me. He kept me chatting.” 

Dame Mary Berry went on to be assessed at the Royal Berkshire hospital in Reading, where it was discovered that her hip was broken and “one foot was turning out”. Moving to treat Mary as soon as possible, she underwent surgery the next day and her hip was repaired rather than replaced. 

Confirming that she had been healing ever since, in a wonderfully heartfelt gesture typical of the beloved culinary star, Mary remarked upon how kind the medical staff were, saying, “Oh, they were all lovely!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAneT6XM8_s

Mary Berry’s health revelation comes as she previously spoke out about having polio as a child and urged people to take up the offer of a Covid-19 vaccine.

According to the BBC, she told the Radio Times, "If you're in a hospital like I was, with people in callipers, people in pain... I think everyone should take the vaccine. I had polio, but now almost the whole world is vaccinated against it.”

Mary went on to say that “apart from looking "a bit funny" when rolling pastry with her "funny left hand", she had been left with "no other difficulties whatsoever" afterwards. 

"I'm not as good at sport as I was, but I was let off very lightly," the cookery writer declared.