Mary Berry, I’ve interviewed you here a
few times, and on the radio a few times and I felt like I knew you pretty well.
And? But I hear that Claudia Winkleman, over the
course of this series, discovered a dark secret from the Berry history.
Well we had a lot of time to chat. We were stuck together, mainly because I also
followed Mary home, which was weird on occasion. But this is what I love most about Mary. We
all feel like we know Mary. We know that she’s amazing and it was week two. They were making
a moussaka. It takes time. Mary and I are sitting there in the green room, snuggled
under a blanket. Well it was cold wasn’t it?
Always cold! The boys didn’t like it.
No.
And we’re sitting there and Mary turns to
me and went, “Here, did I tell you about when I was arrested?” I swear to god, I
just drop what I’m holding, I just go “What?” And, well it was about twenty five years ago.
Twenty five years ago I was asked to go to America to do cookery demonstrations and I’m
very particular at getting everything right and I also try to look ahead so I thought,
“I ought to have my recipes, all the ingredients weighed out in case the plane is late or in case
the connections aren’t right, so I can go straight onstage to do my cookery demonstration.”
And so I weighed out each recipe in little bags.
I had the flour, and the sugar and everything
grouped together so I could lift it out for the first recipe and so on.
Cut to – it was the sniffer dogs – this was my favourite bit.
When we arrived there were dogs, and I love dogs and I was just ready to go and they all
three of them came up with their noses sort of like this. And I thought, “Oh come on,”
but they didn’t want to know me, they just began… and then suddenly the airport became
empty and there were just uniformed people and I was with Lucy Young, my assistant, they
parted us. Lucy there and me there, into two cells.
Mary Berry in a cell with a selection of packets containing white powder.
And you see, I didn’t know if their all-purpose flour was the same as our flour. That’s
why I’ve taken it.
This is why I love her. Because she wanted
to make the greatest cakes possible so had it all ready. And is it true… I was just
incredulous. They were like, “We need you back on set!” I was like, “Somebody else
is going to have to do that.” And didn’t he turn to you and say, “Ma’am, are you
expecting to make some money from these white packets?” And you said… “Oh, I do and
my fee has already been agreed.”.
