My Daughter is a Much Better Mother Than I Ever Was…

The cook and television presenter Mary Berry tells Charlotte Williamson about ageless ambition, being a hands-on granny and her struggle with being a thoroughly modern mother

Mary Berry does not disappoint. In person, she’s just as kind and wise and twinkly as she is when she appears on television – and even though there are no soggy-bottom innuendoes, her fabulously cheeky wink makes the odd appearance.

Now 81, Mary arrives at the w&h shoot wearing an off-duty uniform of black skirt (she was never a trouser person before Bake Off), pink cashmere cardie and sensible shoes, accompanied by her daughter, Annabel. Both clearly love fashion. Mary’s thrilled with the shoes the stylist picks, says she’s tempted to buy the embroidered bomber jacket, and, after some gentle persuasion, wears a trouser suit for the first time (“Like a virgin!” cries Annabel).

Mary was raised in Bath, where her father was a surveyor and planner. After leaving school, she demonstrated new electric ovens for the Bath electricity showroom before moving to London where she worked as a food editor on various magazines and wrote several cookery books. She married Paul Hunnings, an antiquarian bookseller, in 1966, and the couple live in Buckinghamshire. They have three children – Annabel, who is the youngest, Thomas, who is a tree surgeon, and William, who died in a car accident when he was 19.

Mary’s daughter Annabel Bosher, 45, is married to Dan and they live on a farm in Oxford shire, less than an hour’s drive from Mary’s home, with their three children: Louis, 12, Hobie, ten, and Atalanta, six.

Mary started as a judge on The Great British Bake Off in 2010 alongside the baker Paul Hollywood. She made headlines when she announced she was leaving the show last year, but has several new projects in the pipeline, including two new BBC series, Mary Berry Everyday, with an accompanying book of the same name and Secrets from Britain’s Great Houses.