Prue Leith | [‘I’m running out of time’]
The star on life after Bake Off, Nigella Lawson and putting pen to paper
She may have left The Great British Bake Off, but that doesn’t mean that Dame Prue Leith is slowing down entirely. Earlier this year the star, 86, released her book, Being Old… And Learning to Love It, and series three of her show, Prue Leith’s Cotswolds Kitchen, is currently available to stream on ITVX.‘I'm very happy with the show,’ she smiles. The main reason? ‘It's filmed in my house, which is divine, because I just get up… The make-up girl - a lovely woman called Bambi, bangs on my door and says, “Wake up Prue and get into the make-up chair, because you're on in half an hour,”’ the chef laughs. ‘It’s different from Bake Off when I was getting up at half past 4 and 5 in the morning to travel to set!’
And that’s not the only reason, as she adds, ‘Because it's my show, I can say what the dishes are and I have a real input.’ Prue also enlisted her husband John, who she married in 2016, to help. ‘I thought I better drag him in because if you have a film crew in your house for two weeks at a time, it will make anybody want a divorce!’ However, she wasn't expecting him to somewhat become the star of the show! ‘He's turned out to be fantastically good at it, so much so that I'm now regretting it,’ she admits. The chef explains, ‘We were in the Co-Op the other night, we were paying… And the woman behind the till said, “You're that man from the telly! You're John Playfair from Cotswolds Kitchen. I love you. I love it. In fact, I'm in love with you!”’ She hilariously adds, ‘Not a glance my way!’
Dame Prue Leith and husband John Playfair for Prue Leith's Cotswolds Kitchen on ITV
Life after Bake Off
As to why she wrote her book, which is part memoir and part a personal reflection, she shares, ‘I kept hearing from all sides of people saying how terrible it was to be old, and I thought “no it isn’t!”’ Prue tells fans, ‘There are a lot of good things. Every single age has its ups and downs. You don't get through any age without some misery and some great highs, but old age isn't the worst of them.’ However, that isn’t to say that she doesn't realise what getting older entails. ‘I realise I'm running out of time. You can't be 86 without thinking about death a bit,’ she candidly says. It was because of this, that she waved goodbye to her role on Bake Off, which is typically filmed over a
10-week period. ‘I really loved it, but… I realised that I would never have a summer holiday in Europe again… I want a holiday in the summer.’
Leaving, though, was helped by the fact that she loves her replacement, Nigella Lawson. 'She is the perfect person to do it. She's strong enough to stand up to Paul Hollywood, but she knows her stuff… I don't think they could have got a better person, we’ve all been rooting [for her.]’
