Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Great British Bake Off champion who writes for the Times, published a cookbook, and baked the Queen's 90th birthday cake.
On the island
Eight records
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.
The Best Things in Life are Free
Luther Vandross and Janet Jackson
This is one of the ones I remember from primary school. My teacher Mrs Norton would play it every day in the background in class.
This is definitely when I was a hormonal teenager. I think I listened to this for about five years straight.
This was the first CD I bought for my first car. I didn't have very much money, so I drove over to HMV, and the only CD that was on sale was the Isley Brothers.
This was the song that [my husband] would listen to in the background. But he thought I wasn't listening, but I was.
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.
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.
Canon in D MajorFavourite
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Herbert von Karajan
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.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:10Was it an epiphany for you at the end of the series?
I went in and it was really accidental. My husband applied for me and said, Hey, go, I think you should do it. ... I thought, as long as I'm not out in the first week, it'll be absolutely fine. ... then got to week five, got Star Baker, and thought, oh, I'm quite enjoying this now. ... got to the final, I thought, I don't need to win. My confidence was growing at each stage.
Presenter asks
4:01Did you realize that a lot of people shed tears with you when you said those words?
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 and I met a lady who ... said, I watched your final and 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. ... So for me I had realized what had happened at that point and ever since kind of coming off bake off, everybody seems to talk about that last bit and how they felt the same emotions or in some way related to those words.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The luxury
Marmite. It'd have to be Marmite. That is the one thing that I would take that I'd miss desperately.
Did you feel like a young woman at that point who had choices about her future? Or did you feel your future to be mapped out for you?
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 environment that we grew up in. 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…
Presenter asks
25:33Your success and fame has been credited with doing more for race relations than any great big government initiative could ever do. What do you make of that?
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. Sometimes I feel like there's quite a lot of pressure because I think, oh goodness, because I'm not perfect, but 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 That's a good thing.
Presenter asks
26:33Does that happen to you?
Yeah, I mean, it has happened. ... through my sort of early teens when you've had like sort of the big things that happen in the news, you know, like September the eleventh and things like that ... you do get abuse, and I did get abuse. I had things thrown at me and pushed and shoved, and you know, I just. It sounds really silly because I feel like that's just become a part of my life now. I expect it. 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? I don't retaliate. Because that's what I just feel like there's a dignity in silence, and I think. If I retaliate to negativity with negativity, Then we've evened out. 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.
Presenter asks
29:37It's such a cliche to say that any reality TV programme is a journey, but for you it seems more applicable than most. Would you agree that it helped you reconnect with yourself?
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 … 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.
“I just I've spent my whole life watching my parents sacrifice things for me. Um buying a house was nothing. I just couldn't bear the fact that somebody would come in and treat my mom like a second class citizen.”
“I don't retaliate. Because that's what I just feel like there's a dignity in silence, and I think. If I retaliate to negativity with negativity, Then we've evened out. And I don't need to even that out because if somebody's being negative, I need to be the better person.”
“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.”
“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.”