Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Chef, restaurateur, writer, and broadcaster best known as a judge on The Great British Bake Off.
On the island
Eight records
the reason I chose it was because one of my memories of being a teenager, being so embarrassed, because my mother would put this, she was an actress, and when this song came on, she would dance around the room, being the ugly duckling and wiggling her tail.
Cosi Si Calele AfrikaFavourite
which has now become the South African national anthem
Academy of St Martin in the Fields / Sir Neville Marriner
I went to a concert and they played Mozart's Eine Kleinen Nachmusik and that was my beginning of my interest in classical music.
There's something about this song which is about you just have to keep going, go on loading sixteen tons. And I think I'm very dogged and determined.
At one point, two of my friends and I decided that we would have singing lessons, and we hired between the three of us a really good singing teacher. And it was the only time I have been able to sing
Nocturne No. 2 in E-flat major, Op. 9 No. 2
After my husband died, or about four years after my husband died, I actually fell in love with Ernest Hall, who's a really good pianist. … he did get me into Chopin.
I love the exuberance of it. I love that female thing of being strutting and in charge.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:41You began a high profile job in your late seventies, Prue. Do you ever feel like you're demolishing a few stereotypes alongside all that cake?
I've never thought of myself as a kind of role model or champion of women doing stuff, but it's never occurred to me that they wouldn't.
Presenter asks
4:57Prue, the hospitality industry is of course facing very challenging times at the moment. … Do you think that working in hospitality doesn't have the status it deserves and that makes it harder to recruit new people?
Caterers are so undervalued. Top chefs get paid well and top restaurateurs can earn a lot of money. But the pay, by and large, is poor. The hours are lousy. … we don't pay enough for food. We don't pay enough for raw food and we don't pay enough for restaurant food. And what I'm hoping is that now because there's been so much attention to it, we will start to pay people better. But I'm sorry to say that'll mean you pay more for your dinner.
Presenter asks
5:55You voted for Brexit in the last referendum. I wondered if you'd regretted that at any point over the difficult times of the past eighteen months, two years.
The keepsakes
The book
James Joyce
I should really have something that I have never been able to read, because stuck in a desert island with nothing else to do, it would force me to get past the first chapter. So either James Joyce's Ulysses or Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. ... No, I think it would be Ulysses. ... I think the Irish are more fun than the French.
The luxury
Some writing materials so that I can write another novel, or keep a journal, or keep sane.
Yes, I've certainly I haven't actually regretted it because I still think long term it's a good thing. … I think we should let people in if we need them in the trade. And then the other thing I'm still anxious about is that I think we have very good food standards in this country. And I've always thought that we shouldn't be allowed to make a deal that breaches our own rules.
Presenter asks
6:54Prue, I know that your pro-Brexit stance led to you being the target of online trolling. Did that upset you?
Yes, very much. It's horrible. Being trolled is absolutely awful because you're so powerless. I mean, everybody says this, but it's true. You cannot come back and argue your case. But I was advised, and I think correctly, to do nothing. Don't give it oxygen. All you'll do is reignite the people who hate you. And so I did nothing, and it went away. And it didn't last very long, and it didn't upset me for very long.
Presenter asks
19:27So you eventually got married after Rain and Nan's divorce. How did she [Nan] find out about your relationship?
I wanted a baby really badly, and I did become pregnant. So we then told Nan that we had fallen in love and that we were going to have a baby, which must have been appalling for her because of course she had no idea. She felt we were, you know, I was her friend. So it was really terrible for her. But she was a wonderful woman and Rain was determined that we would stay friends. And he managed to do that. … Nan would come and stay with us in the country and she was like a godparent to my children. But what we didn't tell her was that we had been in love for thirteen years. We didn't tell her that he had been … cheating on her all that time.
Presenter asks
25:37You are sometimes accused by viewers of being a bit too focused on calories. What do you say to that?
Well, that's because I often say that's absolutely worth the calories or that's not worth the calories. Oh, this is worth every calorie, I'll say. … [Beat] say that I mustn't say it because people then who have an eating disorder feel guilty, they feel unhappy, so they eat more. So perhaps I'll stop saying it.
“It's one of the things I tried to do a little bit with my children too, is … if they have siblings, what they love is to be with one of their parents or both their parents by themselves without their siblings. So my dad would sometimes take me out just for supper by myself. … I think I was always in love with the trappings of restaurants.”
“The truth is, it wasn't until I got to Europe that I realized how ingrained racism is. … I would walk down the street … a venerable old black man would perhaps get off the pavement and walk in the gutter to let these giggling schoolgirls pass. … I still have a sense of guilt. I think all South Africans do.”
“I am not at all proud of the fact that I was an adulteress for all that time. But in a sense I just don't think I had any option. I could not have left ever.”
“I think to meet somebody who you know you're going to spend the rest of your life with when you're 70 years old and for it to work so well is just too lucky to be true. So I hope it sticks.”