It’s time for the GBBO expert to grow, cook, eat, arrange…
Prue Leith joins Sarah Raven for Episode 40 of her podcast, “grow, cook, eat, arrange”, to discuss Prue’s recent 4-part gardening TV series, Bake Off show stories and her recent campaigning to improve hospital food.
Following Sarah’s appearance on the Channel 4 show, Prue’s Great Garden Plot, the duo delves into Prue’s gardening journey. The TV series follows Prue’s transition from her family house of 40 years to a house her and her husband, John Playfair, built from the ground up.
On uprooting her life and starting anew, Prue said:
“I’ve had a lovely garden for 45 years in the Cotswolds in a big house, but like most people my age, you can’t go on living in a huge house when there’s just two of you, so what we did was we wanted to downsize and we realised the best thing to do was to turn the farmhouse [attached to our home] into our old age home and sell off the rest of the house, which we did rather successfully”.
Huge amounts of clearing needed to be done around the newly built house, with an orchard, rose beds and huge planters of bulbs in the courtyard planted around the acres of land. Prue reveals how The Great British Bake-Off was filmed during lockdown, with up to 150 people in one hotel for 7 weeks this year and last. Prue gives some special insight on what happens behind the cameras on the beloved baking show.
“Both seasons [in the past two years] we’ve been locked down in a very nice hotel with 150 people, it was huge fun because you get to know the crew better than you would before COVID because in previous years when it was a wrap we’d all enter our cars and go straight home, this time we went straight into the pub and we had very good food, it was all excellent and I even had my dogs with me”
Prue also shares with Sarah, a former doctor at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, her recent campaigning to improve hospital food which extends across many aspects of hospital stays both as a patient and visitor. From adjusting vending machine offerings, personalised menu design, making toast to accompany a cup of tea and much more, Prue has worked on a paper alongside a team of NHS staff with main recommendations to change the calibre of hospital food.
Finally, the pair talk about Prue’s current campaigning surrounding the Dying with Dignity bill, which has recently been debated again in the House of Lords. Prue became involved with the campaign after her brother, who suffered with bone cancer, and late husband both experienced a painful end to their lives. Prue and Sarah discuss the issue and share their thoughts and feelings on this sensitive topic.
Episode 40 with Prue Leith is available to stream on all major platforms or via sarahraven.com/podcast.
