Nadiya Hussain

Nadiya Hussain0:00

This is the BBC.

Presenter0:03

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

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For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

Presenter0:38

My castaway this week is the great British bake-off champion Nadia Hussain.

Presenter0:42

Tens of millions of us watched in awe, week after week, as she conjured culinary magnificence from rough puff, creme pat, and marshmallow icing, wowing judges and viewers alike.

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with her unique recipe of creativity, competence, warmth, and wit. A natural both at the stove and on screen, she has since taken her talents beyond the tent, to write weekly for the Times, publish her own cookery book, and even bake a ninetieth birthday cake for Her Majesty the Queen.

Presenter1:11

Throughout the ten weeks of relentless judging, this five-foot-tall hijab-winning British Bangladeshi housewife and mum of three kept her nerve, going on to conquer the media and becoming, according to De Brett's, one of the UK's 500 most influential people. She says simply, Although I must admit that baking is my favourite pastime, when I don't do that, which is not often, I love to read and write. By this I mean I read cookbooks and write recipes. So I never steer too far away from baking and cooking. What can I say? I am obsessed. So welcome, Nadia. As a nation, I think it'd be fair to say we were obsessed with Bake Off throughout its period of being broadcast. Fifteen million of us, I think it was, in the end, watched you get to the final.

Presenter1:56

It seemed to be about so much more, of course, than just baking a nice little cake. It seemed towards that final episode that you yourself were entirely invested and really very emotional. Was it a kind of

Presenter2:10

Was it an epiphany for you at the end of the series?

Nadiya Hussain2:12

Of the series? Yeah, I um it was one of those things where I'd gone in and it was really accidental. My husband applied for me and said, Hey, go, I think you should do it. And he just felt like I needed to do something for myself. I'd been at home with the kids for 10 years and then I kind of went in thinking, as long as I'm not out in the first week, it'll be absolutely fine. And I got through the first week and I thought, oh, okay, well, I'll be out at some point soon. Got to week five, got Star Baker, and thought, oh, I'm quite enjoying this now. And then got to sort of week seven and thought, right, I'd love it if I got to the final. Got to the final, I thought, I don't need to win. You know, I didn't realize what was happening was.

Nadiya Hussain2:48

My confidence was growing at each stage.

Presenter2:50

Describe the atmosphere at the moment when Mel and Sue declare, you know, ready, steady, bake. It is just a cake, but it's not just a cake.

Nadiya Hussain2:59

Oh, it's not just a cake, it really just isn't. I think if it's a technical, then it's really nerve-wracking'cause you've got that gingham hump on your worktop and you just don't know what's under there.

Presenter3:09

And the technical is the one that you can't, of course, practice because you don't know what you're going to get to make. And let's call it Walnut Cake Gate, shall we? It's the first episode of that first series for you, and you come twelfth out of twelve. I think it was a problem with the icing, wasn't it?

Nadiya Hussain3:11

Don't know what you're gonna get to me.

Nadiya Hussain3:22

Yeah.

Nadiya Hussain3:24

I hadn't iced the sides. So they said ice the cake and I hadn't iced the sides because my husband doesn't like too much icing. I was distraught. It kind of confirmed everything I felt. I thought, You don't belong here. You you never belonged here and and I beat myself up about that and I still can't look at walnut cake to this day.

Presenter3:43

And we as viewers, of course it's easy to be glib about the emotional power of television, but it it definitely has emotional power. And when we saw you say at the end of that last winning episode, I'm never going to say I can't do it, I'm never going to say maybe, I'm never going to say I don't think I can, I can, I will.

Presenter4:01

A lot of people shed tears with you as you were saying that.

Nadiya Hussain4:04

It was weird because I'd said those words but I had never watched it back. When you're there it feels like a blur and I remember watching that final back and just looking around and everyone around me was blubbering. My family, everyone that was watching it with me, they were all crying and I know when I said those words why I said them and I remember the following day I went out

Nadiya Hussain4:26

And I met a lady who and I'll never forget it because I met this lady who was with a child, maybe eight or nine months old, and said, I watched your final and I I've been scared to leave the house because I've had my baby and I've just been really afraid to leave with the baby and I watched the final and I finally left with the baby outside the house. It's the first thing I've done with my child outside of the house without anybody. So for me I had realized what had happened at that point and

Nadiya Hussain4:52

Ever since kind of coming off bake off, everybody seems to talk about that last bit and how they felt the same emotions or s in some way related to those words.

Presenter5:01

Tell me about your first piece of music then today. What what's your first disc?

Nadiya Hussain5:04

So, my first one is probably my earliest memory of music. So, it's Bob Marley's No Woman, No Cry. My dad had a record player, and he loved his record player so much. I think it was up there with his children, you know, it was his kids and that record player. And he had a set of records, but it was that one that he would play constantly on repeat.

Speaker 45:27

So

Speaker 45:33

No, no man, no die.

Speaker 45:40

No warm money, no crowd.

Speaker 45:45

No, oh man, no matter

Speaker 45:50

Say

Speaker 45:52

That I remember when we used to sing.

Presenter6:02

That was Bob Marley and The Wailers and No Woman, No Cry. Chosen by you, Nadia Hussein, because your dad always used to play it on the thing that he valued along with his children. You said his record player. Yeah. That would be on the decks. Your parents, Jamir and Asmad, come here from Bangladesh. After their marriage, they moved to Luton. You're one of six kids. As a little kid, busy house. How did you entertain yourselves?

Speaker 46:10

Yeah.

Nadiya Hussain6:24

Oh, goodness, we were rebels. We were awful.'Cause there were six of us, and when my youngest brother was born, the eldest was twelve. So my sister would spend most of her time upstairs as a grumpy teenager, and the rest of us

Nadiya Hussain6:38

I remember this one game we played, which we played every day, regardless of what the weather was, we would try to dig to the centre of the earth.

Nadiya Hussain6:45

So we would take some old spoons from the house or spades, whatever we could find, and we would play every day. Somebody said that there's lava at the center of the earth, and we thought if we let that lava out, it might get really warm. So I think we're just looking for warmth, which I'm still looking for now.

Presenter7:02

Um tell me a bit about your grandmother. She she was important in family life and in your life. Wh why was that?

Nadiya Hussain7:07

My grandma was definitely the glue in our family. I grew up with a brother and a sister who were quite poorly and spent a lot of time in hospital. So my mum spent, I think of twelve months, she'd spend nearly nine months in and out of hospital with my brother and sister, who were both sort of in and out constantly. So it was a case where my parents would have to share who stays with which child at what point.

Presenter7:28

And these were serious health problems. Your sister had a congenital heart problem and your brother was born with a cleft palace.

Nadiya Hussain7:32

Yeah.

Nadiya Hussain7:34

Yeah. It was hard. I mean, I can't

Nadiya Hussain7:36

I can't imagine now as a parent myself how they managed that and still showered us with love. But when they weren't around, she just took over. She cooked, she cleaned. She was very new to the country herself at this point. Right. So she didn't really understand I remember a point when she didn't know what to put in our hair when she was giving us a bath and so she said, Right, I'll just put fairy liquid in your hair. So she used to wash our hair with fairy liquid.

Nadiya Hussain8:00

But she did the best she could. She's an amazing woman and she definitely kind of held us um she kept us afloat while my mum wasn't around and my dad weren't around.

Presenter8:10

Time for some more music, Nadia. What are we going to hear now?

Nadiya Hussain8:12

Uh, we are going to listen to The Best Things in Life are Free by Luther Van Dross and Janet Jackson. This is uh one of the ones in I remember it from primary school. My teacher would Mrs Norton would play it every day in the background in class.

Speaker 48:25

Love more than you're willing to pay.

Speaker 48:30

It's good alright And I won't make you promises I'll just do all I can to be your lover Cause I earned my strength

Speaker 48:47

Don't you know it

Speaker 48:49

You and I are free, we live by each other.

Speaker 48:54

That's amazing like

Presenter8:57

That was Luther Van Dross and Janet Jackson, and The Best Things in Life Are Free. And you said chosen, Nadia Hussain, because Mrs Norton, your teacher, used to play that every day. Well done her, very progressive. Your mother, I understand, said of you and your sisters, I want them to be little princesses.

Nadiya Hussain9:11

Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. What does she mean?

Presenter9:12

Is that right?

Nadiya Hussain9:13

My dad was a chef, so he spent a lot of time in the kitchen. And my mum was one of those she was a hard worker, and her mum was a is a hard worker. Even now, at eighty four, she'll still get up and try and help my mum in the kitchen and stuff. And I think my mum was such a grafter that she almost didn't want that for us.

Presenter9:29

True.

Nadiya Hussain9:29

'Cause you know, they had an extended family that I had to look after out in Bangladesh and

Nadiya Hussain9:33

You know, they always had that kind of pressure. My dad always encouraged us to learn things like learning how to ride a bike, learning how to swim, learning how to cook, those things were important. But my mum would used to say, No, just just leave them alone. They don't need to do anything.

Presenter9:46

And is it right that your mother, when she was preparing family meals, you know, that in itself was quite an elaborate process, you know, there would be at least sort of four different types of curry at one sitting and all of that.

Nadiya Hussain9:56

Yeah. I mean four curries is I think quite it's quite small. It's quite a small amount. I think my mum would go to up to about eight. So eight kind of medium sized curries with a big pot of rice. And when you sat down for a meal you had to have each one cooked from scratch. Cooked from scratch. For six kids. Six kids every single day.

Presenter10:14

It's kids.

Nadiya Hussain10:16

Yeah. I mean, it baffles me now'cause I cook one curry and my mum thinks I'm an awful mother sometimes. She's like, One curry? I had six kids and I made eight. We always said to her, Why are you cooking that mu we really don't need to eat that much?

Presenter10:28

And why was she?

Nadiya Hussain10:29

I think it was something, a tradition that came from Bangladesh that she could never get rid of. And I think when she first came to this country, that's all she had, was her identity.

Nadiya Hussain10:39

That's what they did in Bangladesh, they would cook seven or eight different curries, and that's what she did here.

Presenter10:42

And food, of course, is so tightly bound up with our own identity, our version of ourselves, our domestic memories and so on. I I noticed from watching you on T V that y you seemed to have, I would say, a particularly sweet tooth. Did that start when you were young? I mean, what sort of puddings and things and cakes did you enjoy?

Nadiya Hussain10:49

And so on.

Nadiya Hussain10:59

We

Nadiya Hussain11:00

Traditionally in Bangladeshi cuisine there is no concept of dessert.

Nadiya Hussain11:04

So I never grew up with dessert. The only time I really understood dessert was when I was at school and you'd have pudding.

Presenter11:08

And you'd have

Nadiya Hussain11:10

And I used to come home and say to mum, I was a bit of a rebel, Come home and say, Why don't we have pudding? Like, we always have it at school, and my friends have it at home, but my mum never used to use her oven, so she'd use it as storage, she'd put frying pans in her oven, so she would nev she never knew how to bake, she never knew that that's where cake magic happens.

Presenter11:26

Let's have some more music, Nadia Hussain. Tell me about this. This is your third one.

Nadiya Hussain11:30

This is Backstreet Boys As Long As You Love Me. This is definitely when I was a hormonal teenager. I think I listened to this for about five years straight.

Speaker 411:39

Uh

Nadiya Hussain11:39

Yeah.

Speaker 411:39

Don't care what is written in your history

Speaker 411:44

Long as he'll with me

Speaker 411:48

I don't care who you are.

Speaker 411:51

Where you from?

Speaker 411:54

What you did, as long as you love me, who you are.

Speaker 412:01

Where you from

Speaker 412:05

As long as you laugh.

Presenter12:08

Backstreet Boys, and As Long As You Love Me. So tell me, uh, Nadia, as I watched you in those thirty separate rounds in Bake Off, I I watched you kind of find your competitive self, as it were. Were you were you competitive at school? Did you like to be top of class? Did you do well?

Nadiya Hussain12:20

As it were.

Nadiya Hussain12:24

Yeah, I was one of those really annoying kids at school who would say I'd never revise, but secretly I was revising every single day. You know? I wasn't a binge reviser. I was somebody who would sit and learn what I learnt at school every day. I was the kid that

Nadiya Hussain12:38

Did really well at school and everybody hated me.

Presenter12:41

You you are, understandably, I would think, you know, capitalising on on the the fame and the success that Bake Off has brought you by now embracing this career of writing. You're writing a weekly foods column for the Times, doing recipes for them. You've got uh a book being published this year, a cookery book, there's another one coming out next year, and then as I understand it, you've got a couple of novels coming out. But I I read that you won a poetry competition when you were just eight.

Nadiya Hussain13:05

Yeah, I was I think it was seven and it was

Presenter13:07

What was the poem about?

Nadiya Hussain13:09

It was four lines and it was about a mum who got soap in her eyes while her kids were around the bath. And I can't remember the poem fully. It was a national competition. And if you win, then you make it into a collection. So there's a book. And I really enjoyed how I felt after winning. And I thought, oh, I I like this. Um and then I just carried on and just kept writing and uh I went on to kind of do an English language A level.

Presenter13:35

The other thing that you enjoyed was cooking. Mrs. Marshall was your cooking teacher. Tell me about her.

Nadiya Hussain13:40

She was the one that introduced me to the magic. I look at it like magic. Even now sometimes when I bake and it comes out completely different, I think that is the magic. I never knew that a mix goes in the oven and that's what it comes out like.

Nadiya Hussain13:54

'Cause my mum was never using the oven. I thought it was storage. So when I went into school and she m whipped up this Victoria sponge and put it into tins and said, Right, we're gonna put it into the oven and it was hot and I was like, Oh, I I thought this was I mean, you imagine at twelve, but I wasn't alone. I was in a class full of girls who had never baked in their lives. Wow. And these were the ovens where they had steel doors where you couldn't look inside.

Presenter14:11

Yeah.

Nadiya Hussain14:16

And I was like, okay, so what happens now? She said, we just wait 40 minutes, and 40 minutes later, there's this cake. And I was like,

Nadiya Hussain14:22

That's cake and she said yes and she looked at me as if I was completely insane. I was like, That's magic You know, and to me it was like sorcery. But you see, there is a bit of alchemy.

Presenter14:31

Me and baking.

Nadiya Hussain14:33

Do you still feel that? Absolutely. I mean, when I'm doing something new that I've never done before, and as time goes by, there are different methods, there's always new ways of doing things, and I'm always learning, and I'll do something.

Nadiya Hussain14:45

I'll whiz something up and it'll turn into a paste and I'm like, wow.

Presenter14:48

Right, tell me about your next one. Then what are we going to hear? It's your fourth.

Nadiya Hussain14:48

Tell me what you might

Nadiya Hussain14:51

So I've got Summer Breeze by the Isley Brothers, and this was the first C D I bought for my first car. I didn't have very much money, so I drove over to HMV, and the only C D that was on sale was the Isley Brothers. And the rest of this day is history. I still have that C D and I still listen to that.

Speaker 415:08

See the curtains hanging in the window In the evening on a Friday night

Speaker 415:18

A little light shining through the window Let's win every everything's alright

Speaker 415:29

And or some more.

Speaker 415:33

It makes me feel fine Blowing through the jasmine in my mind

Presenter15:42

That was the Isley Brothers and Summer Breeze. So, Nadia Hussain, you went to Bangladesh for, I think it was seven months when you were.

Presenter15:50

What, ten years old? Ten. What are your memories of that big trip?

Nadiya Hussain15:51

What do you mean?

Nadiya Hussain15:53

Those were the days when you were allowed to take your kids out of school and they let you back in seven months later. We went at a perfect time when we could catch every season. So my grandad was a rice farmer, and we would plow the fields, we'd grow the rice, and we harvested the rice, we sold the rice, we ate the rice, we did the whole thing in seven months.

Presenter16:11

And were you happy to come home to Britain after that?

Nadiya Hussain16:13

Absolutely not. We wanted to stay.

Nadiya Hussain16:16

I mean, it's easy for me to sit and say that for them, they never understood why we wanted to stay. You know, like, Well, you live in the UK, you've got a better life over there, why do you want to stay here? But we loved it. I remember just being hysterical and not wanting to leave.

Nadiya Hussain16:28

I mean, I remember my mum saying, Come on, we've got to go. You can have beans on toast if we go home and we were like, Okay, okay, maybe we'll go. We'll come back again next year. That's fine. It didn't take much.

Presenter16:38

Yeah.

Nadiya Hussain16:38

Yeah.

Presenter16:38

And as you said, your dad was working in the restaurant industry. First, he works as a waiter and then, as I understand it, he had a few restaurants of his own.

Nadiya Hussain16:43

Yeah.

Presenter16:44

He taught you to cook, he taught you to do all those domestic things, and in essence, you know, culturally, because he wanted you to do it for your husband. And there you were.

Presenter16:53

You know, a young British girl with ambition, you went to college, you were getting an education. Did you feel like a young woman at that point who who had choices about her future? Or did you feel your future to be mapped out for you?

Nadiya Hussain17:04

I mean, I think I definitely in my own head I felt like I had choices, but I think I always knew the reality that it will be dictated somewhat because that's just the kind of

Nadiya Hussain17:16

environment that we grew up in.

Nadiya Hussain17:20

Whether you're a man or a woman, you know, I think when you're a woman, you're slightly dictated to more than you are a man. And I saw my cousins and family members, especially the women, there seemed to be an emerging pattern where they'd get to a certain age, they'd get married and they'd go off have children, didn't work. It there was a pattern. In my own head, I had thought I had kind of choices, but I knew deep down that

Presenter17:43

Yes, the the the messages that were being reinforced is that you'll follow the pattern.

Nadiya Hussain17:47

Oh yeah.

Presenter17:47

By the time you were nineteen you had two jobs.

Nadiya Hussain17:50

Yeah, I had two jobs at 19. My sister got a job at 15, you know, and we grew up with a dad who worked really, really hard. And my mum always encouraged us to go out to work. She always said, don't stay at home, go and work.

Presenter18:01

Is it I've read this in the papers, so I I have to find out now if it's true. Uh that you you bought your parents' first house for them.

Nadiya Hussain18:08

Yes. So I remember living in that house and we had a landlord who would just come and go whenever he wanted. And I didn't understand. I was like, Why does he keep coming and going?'Cause He had a set of keys, right? Yeah, he had a set of keys and he'd come and go and and he'd come in and and complain to my mum that this isn't tidy or this is messed up and I was like, I didn't like it.

Presenter18:18

You had a set of keys, right? Yeah, you had a set of keys.

Nadiya Hussain18:26

And then I heard a rumor that he was selling the house, so I thought, Right, I'll approach him myself and say, If you're selling it, can I buy it? You were nin nineteen? Nineteen, yeah.

Presenter18:35

It's quite unusual, isn't it?

Nadiya Hussain18:37

Um

Nadiya Hussain18:38

No, I I th I you know, I think

Presenter18:40

Well, it is.

Nadiya Hussain18:40

Uh

Nadiya Hussain18:41

Well, probably. Um, I I just I've spent my whole life watching my parents sacrifice things for me. Um

Nadiya Hussain18:46

So

Nadiya Hussain18:48

buying a house was nothing. I just couldn't bear the fact that somebody would come in and

Nadiya Hussain18:52

Treat my mom.

Nadiya Hussain18:54

like a second class citizen.

Presenter18:55

And how did they react when you told them that you'd had this money to buy the house?

Nadiya Hussain18:59

I think they were very emotional. They were really emotional.

Nadiya Hussain19:02

Um, and they tried to talk me out of it. Um

Nadiya Hussain19:06

And then I said, No, Dad, how do you get a mortgage?'Cause at nineteen I didn't know how well that happened And I said, What do I do? Who do I pay the money to? And my dad kind of said, Okay, well, let's do this then.

Presenter19:16

Let's have some more music, Nadia Hussein. Your fifth choice.

Nadiya Hussain19:19

So it's accidentally in love by counting crows.

Presenter19:22

And tell me why you've chosen this one then.

Nadiya Hussain19:23

This is a a song that when I was introduced to my husband, we spoke to each other for six six months and we we never saw each other. And this was the song that he would listen to in the background. But he thought I wasn't listening, but I was.

Speaker 419:35

How much longer will it take to cure this? Just to cure it, cause I can't ignore it if it's love, love makes me wanna turn around and face me. But I don't know nothing about love, huh?

Speaker 419:48

Come on, come on!

Speaker 419:50

A little faster, come on, come on. The world will follow after, come on, come on, because everybody's after love.

Presenter20:04

That was counting crows and accidentally in love. And you said, Nadia Hussein, that the man who would become your husband used to play that in the background when he was speaking to you for those six months on the phone when you never met. Does he still play it?

Nadiya Hussain20:15

He still plays it and he still he sings the song every single day at some point and I have to tell him, Look, just stop now. We've been married nearly eleven years. You do not need to sing that to me

Presenter20:23

It was very clear, uh, watching you on television that he didn't just make you fill in the form to apply to be on Bake Off, but but he was there at the end and he very intimately sort of embraced you and was whispering in your ear, you know, how proud he was of you.

Presenter20:36

It was an arranged marriage. The day that you got engaged was the first time that you'd ever clapped eyes on him. What did you think when you saw him?

Nadiya Hussain20:43

Well, it was quite good looking, so it was easy to get engaged to him. But we'd spoken for six months. I think back to me when I was 19, sort of 20, I asked all the right questions. What did you ask him? Sort of things like: what do you have a 10-year forecast? You know, what do you plan on doing in 10 years? How many kids would you like? Are you going to live with your parents? When do you plan on buying a house? All those questions.

Presenter21:03

Given the wrong answers, as you would have believed them to be, w would you have called it off? Would you have been allowed to?

Nadiya Hussain21:09

Oh yeah. Like my dad always gave us options. He never said you have to marry a particular person. My parents never put that kind of pressure on us.

Presenter21:16

Then you were

Nadiya Hussain21:16

Mm.

Presenter21:16

Married then.

Nadiya Hussain21:18

Used to bake on the cake every Every day. Every day. Every day. Every single day. I would wait. Why did you do that?'Cause he loves cake.

Presenter21:19

Yeah.

Presenter21:20

I'm just

Presenter21:21

Why did you do that?

Nadiya Hussain21:24

And he used to work so hard, and he still works really hard.

Nadiya Hussain21:28

I know that when he walks through the door and he smells cake, that smile on his face and I the days I haven't baked a cake, he'll say, Oh, you didn't bake anything and I can hear that disappointment in his voice, but I was a stay at home mum, so I felt like that was my job.

Presenter21:42

When you were married then, you moved to Leeds to be with his family, literally lived with his family. You had two children in very quick succession, one year after another.

Nadiya Hussain21:47

You had

Presenter21:51

Describe to me the Nadia Hussain I would have met then if I'd if I'd bumped into you in the street.

Nadiya Hussain21:56

Um

Nadiya Hussain21:58

I probably would have been a bit of a kind of mess, kind of. I remember myself being a little bit kind of overwhelmed. I got so bogged down in being the best housewife.

Nadiya Hussain22:07

that I kind of lost myself a little bit and it could be something as silly as I'd stop wearing high sh high heels, you know, and and I'd stopped enjoying certain things and I could drive down to my mum's with two very small children and it wouldn't bother me, but I couldn't get on a bus with them because I was so afraid of

Nadiya Hussain22:25

People looking at me, or people thinking that I looked horrible, or people judging me and saying, How could she possibly have two children in that space of time? Things like that.

Presenter22:35

You know, we read a lot these days about the the social isolation of young and old indeed Muslim women in Britain, and that this is a significant problem culturally for all of us.

Nadiya Hussain22:42

Muslim

Presenter22:47

What would you say about that? That there are people within communities who really never reach out of those communities and don't ever interact with the world beyond?

Nadiya Hussain22:56

I think that's what happened with me, where I was.

Nadiya Hussain22:59

so kind of consumed by looking after my children that my only kind of social interaction was either my sister in law or my husband or my father in law, that was it, or my family down the phone, and that was it.

Nadiya Hussain23:13

And I think

Nadiya Hussain23:14

Little by little, I tried to get myself out of that where I'd take the kids to a playgroup and then interact with other people. And then, as soon as they started to go to school, I was like, oh, I like this because I was interacting with different people and I would hang around in the playground and just chat away to mums, which I'm sure were trying to get away because they had other things to do. But I was happily just chatting away to them because that was the only kind of interaction that I got. And sometimes it is really easy to become.

Nadiya Hussain23:40

Trapped in this bubble.

Presenter23:42

Let's have some more music, Nadia Hussain. We're gonna listen to your sixth

Nadiya Hussain23:46

This is uh Katie Melliwa's Nine Million Bicycles. Um this was one of the songs that I listened to during my pregnancy. I tried really hard to listen to classical music, couldn't do it, and I just that was just one of those songs that were just happened to be out at the time, and it was one that I just listened to all the time.

Speaker 424:02

There are nine million bicycles in Beijing

Speaker 424:08

That's a fact.

Speaker 424:11

It's a thing we can't deny Like the fact that I will love you till I die

Speaker 424:23

We are twelve billion light years from the edge. That's a guess.

Speaker 424:31

No one can ever say it's true.

Speaker 424:34

But I know that I will always be with you.

Presenter24:39

Nine million bicycles, Katie Melua. So Nadia Hussain, tens of thousands of people apply to be in that bake-off tent each and every year.

Presenter24:47

And then there you are, nine weeks later, episode ten, in the tent, in the final, the last of three, Paul Hollywood utters the immortal phrase

Nadiya Hussain24:51

In between.

Presenter24:58

An iced bun is a thing of beauty, there is no place to hide. And strangely we all believe him,'cause we're all in by then. We all think that is somehow a golden truth. How does it feel being judged by the iciest stare on television?

Nadiya Hussain25:03

We're all in by then. We all think that is.

Nadiya Hussain25:11

Dare I say, it got easier through time because I felt like at the very beginning I was very different. I was really nervous and by the sort of end I thought, well, I've got nothing to lose now.

Presenter25:22

And you all I mean, you started to really give it right back to him, which was one of the great joys of watching this.

Nadiya Hussain25:25

Yeah, I think it's a good idea.

Nadiya Hussain25:28

My poor dad has been on the receiving end of my gob for years, so it's n it's nice to give it to somebody else.

Presenter25:33

You know, your success and your fame has been credited by many very credible people as doing more for race relations than any great big government initiative could ever do. What what do you make of that?

Nadiya Hussain25:45

I have to say, I genuinely find that astounding. My jaw is on the ground when someone says that, because I can't understand how that happened.

Nadiya Hussain25:53

Sometimes I feel like there's quite a lot of pressure because I think, oh goodness, because I'm not perfect, but.

Nadiya Hussain25:59

the fact that I anyone can sort of look at me and say, Actually, she's done so much for race relations, that's a good thing, you know?'Cause we live in times where things are so strange sometimes that if something like a simple baking show can do something like that, you know

Nadiya Hussain26:14

That's a good thing.

Presenter26:15

And what about the flip side, of course? Because you you know, you're a very prominent woman and and we know that many, many m Muslim women who are not prominent, you know, daily are are ridiculed and abused in our streets right now, such as the temperature of race relations in parts of our country. Does that happen to you?

Nadiya Hussain26:33

Yeah, I mean, it has happened. I mean, through my sort of

Nadiya Hussain26:37

Early teens when

Nadiya Hussain26:39

when you've had like sort of the big things that happen in the news, you know, like September th the eleventh and things like that, when when it's covered by the media and then and all these massive things happen.

Nadiya Hussain26:48

You do

Nadiya Hussain26:49

You do get abuse, and I did get abuse. I had things thrown at me and pushed and shoved, and you know, I just.

Nadiya Hussain26:56

It sounds really silly because I feel like that's just become a part of my life now. I expect it.

Presenter27:02

Really?

Nadiya Hussain27:02

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I expect it. I expect to be shoved or pushed or verbally abused because it happens. It's been happening for years. So, um What do you do?

Nadiya Hussain27:13

I don't retaliate.

Nadiya Hussain27:15

Because that's what I just feel like there's a dignity in silence, and I think.

Nadiya Hussain27:20

If I retaliate to negativity with negativity,

Nadiya Hussain27:24

Then we've evened out.

Nadiya Hussain27:26

And I don't need to even that out because if somebody's being negative, I need to be the better person. Because I've got young children, the one thing I don't want my kids to do is have a negative attitude of living in the UK. Because, yes, there are those negative people, but they're the minority. But I love being British and I love living here. And this is my home. And it always will be, regardless of all the other things that define me, this is my home. And I want my kids to be proud of that. And I don't want my kids to grow up with a chip on their shoulder. So I live as positively as I can. And all those things that do happen to me, hey, you know, it happens, but it happens to other people too. And we deal with it.

Presenter28:01

Tell me about your next piece of music, Madia.

Nadiya Hussain28:02

So it's Seven Years by Lucas Graham. My children absolutely love playing this on the guitar. My husband went on YouTube and learnt how to play this piece and like now him and the boys all play the music together.

Speaker 328:15

Once I was twelve years old, my story got told Before the morning sun when life was lonely Once I was twelve years old

Speaker 328:31

I only see my goals, I don't believe in failure Cause I know the smallest voices, they can make it major I got my boys with me, at least those in favor And if we don't meet before I leave, I hope I'll see

Presenter28:47

That was Lucas Graham and seven years. Um, Nadia Hussain. I mentioned in the introduction that De Bretz has now listed you as being one of the top five hundred most influential people in Britain. How would you like to use that influence that you find yourself with?

Nadiya Hussain29:04

I mean, I was, I think, slightly shocked by that. Um.

Nadiya Hussain29:08

But I felt really proud, really, really proud. And I feel like I'm in such a position because I've spent most of my adult existence trying to raise good children and just being a good role model for them. And it's suddenly become so much more than that. And for me, I just feel like if I continue to just be a good role model for my kids, I feel that's what's really important because I feel like that'll resonate with everyone. Because I feel like if if that's all I'm doing, it's not that much pressure and I'm not thinking about it too much.

Presenter29:37

And it's such a cliche to say that any reality T V programme is a journey, but for you it seems more applicable than most, that somehow it helped you reconnect with that very important core of yourself. Would you agree with that?

Nadiya Hussain29:51

Yeah, I I did feel a little bit like I'd lost myself, but I feel like that same seven-year-old that won the competition, you know, the the nineteen year old that bought the house

Nadiya Hussain30:02

You know

Nadiya Hussain30:03

Whatever I did, I wanted to do really well, and I spent 10 years at home with my children. And I know there are many mums out there who would love to stay at home with their children, and for me, that was a privilege. And yeah, I lost myself a little bit, but I'll never take away from the fact that I had the best job in the world. But now I'm doing something that I love as well as being a mum. And it's nice actually to have the two because I feel like being at home keeps me grounded because I still have so many other roles to fulfil outside of the one that's outside the house.

Presenter30:32

I'm casting you away to a desert island. I can only imagine, given what you've just said, that, you know, you'll cope.

Nadiya Hussain30:36

Yeah, I think I'll be alright.

Presenter30:38

Tell me about your final piece of music, then Nadia. What are we going to hear?

Nadiya Hussain30:41

So it's a classical piece of music that I used to listen to on my children's Cop Mobile, which it was one that I loved so much that I used it for all three of the children and then kept the motor at the end so I could listen to the music even after they'd grown up.

Presenter32:01

That was Pachebell's Canon in D Major, played by the Berlin Philharmonic and conducted by Herbert von Karian. Uh so, Nadia, it's time for you to leave for the island. I'm going to give you some books. Everybody gets the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible or an equivalent uh religious text, the Koran, would you prefer?

Nadiya Hussain32:18

Yeah.

Presenter32:19

And you get to take another book of your own along with those two. What are you going to take?

Nadiya Hussain32:23

Um, probably one that I haven't read before.

Nadiya Hussain32:26

So

Presenter32:27

Yeah.

Nadiya Hussain32:27

I'd probably take JoJo Moyes.

Presenter32:28

Me before you. And a luxury. Now this is meant to be nothing practical, but something that's just going to ease the pain of the deprivation on the island.

Nadiya Hussain32:37

Marmite. It'd have to be Marmite. That is the one thing that I would take that I'd miss desperately. If I can't have my kids, then I could I'll have Marmite. You might not.

Presenter32:38

Yeah.

Presenter32:44

Of the toast for it, though. Do you want

Nadiya Hussain32:45

I can eat my

Presenter32:46

Marmite by the spoonful. Oh. Okay. Life time supply of Marmite it is then. Finally, which one of the eight of the tracks would you save from the waves if they were to be washed away?

Nadiya Hussain32:56

I think it'd have to be the the classical piece. Pachabelle, that would uh be the one that I would save because that reminds me of my children when they were so, so tiny and they were so special.

Presenter33:09

It's yours. Nadi Hussain, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Nadiya Hussain33:13

Thank you.

Presenter33:54

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website, bbc.co.uk slash Radio4.