Prue Leith: “You can’t have it all!” How to ask for help with work and family

Can women have it all? Renowned restauranteur, cookery writer, and Great British Bake Off judge Dame Prue Leith doesn’t think so. In this chat with Fearne, Prue explains why she’s glad she built her career before having children, and why no one should feel ashamed of asking for help with their business or family in order to keep everything afloat. Prue – who had the confidence to found a restaurant when she’d never worked in one – gives advice on never letting a lack of knowledge get in the way of starting a new passion project. She also tells the story of finding love again at 70 after being widowed, and explains why she’s so passionate about legalising assisted dying. The Great British Bake Off returns to Channel 4 on Tuesday 2nd September. If you liked this episode of Happy Place, you might also like: Zandra Rhodes https://pod.fo/e/254d35 Davina McCall https://pod.fo/e/309799 Richard E. Grant https://pod.fo/e/301465 Child on the line is a three-part documentary podcast series celebrating the Volunteer Counsellors of Childline, and the brave children & young people who contact the helpline service. Listen here: https://www.childonthelinepodcast.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hi, I'm Natalie Dormer and I'm proud to be an ambassador for Childline. This year, Childline turns 40. To mark it, I've made Child on the Line, a three-part documentary podcast. We hear why children needed a helpline in 1986, how it was built against the odds and the challenges children face today, from abuse and mental health to social media and AI. Search Child on the Line and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:28Fearne Cotton?

  Hello and a massive welcome to Happy Place with me, Fern Cotton. This is the show that gives you the confidence to live life on your own terms. Today, I'm chatting to Dame Prue-Leith.

• 0:40Speaker 02

  I mean, talk about chutzpah. I had never worked in a restaurant, but I opened one. I'd never taught anybody to cook, but I opened a cookery school. Lack of knowledge has never seemed to got in my way. To say, well, I'll learn as I go, you know. I would not have been a good, full-time mother. I would have found the company of young children all the time boring.

• 1:05Fearne Cotton?

  Oh my God, bloody hell. How are we in September? What is going on? At the start of the summer holidays, I felt like I was at the foot of a mountain, like, how am I going to get through it? The juggle of kids and work. And somehow, we're back to school. We're like, are we hurtling towards Christmas? Am I saying that? I think I am. I'm a Virgo. My birthday is the 3rd of September, so I love this time of year. I want to go to a stationery shop and buy a new pencil case, even though I'm not going to school, and rulers and stationery. And I want everything neat and organised and I want to get into a little routine. This feels to me like the new year, September. I bloody love it. I'm having a spring clean in September. I'm getting all the stationery.

• 1:50Fearne Cotton?

  I'm getting my shit together, guys. That's where I'm at. You might not feel as motivated, but this is Virgo season. This is what Virgos do in September. Also, can I just say, if you came to our Tatten Park Happy Place Festival, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I can't believe that we've done it again. Two festivals this summer. So grateful to every single one of you who turned up. It was just, it's a beautiful thing. It's something I look forward to so massively every year in the calendar. It's a big part of our whole Happy Place calendar. And don't you worry, we're already working on next year, so more to come on that. Now, the most important thing about September, it's not my birthday, it's not being a Virgo

• 2:32Fearne Cotton?

  and getting all your stationery, it's actually the fact that every Tuesday night I get to sit down and watch The Great British Bake Off. I am absolutely thrilled that it's back. Me and my kids love it. This to me is like a vent TV where me and both my children, Rex and Honey, will actually sit and watch the whole show together. I love it. Commenting on it, getting wrapped up in the drama, who's got a soggy bottom. Oh, I literally can't get enough. It's like one of my favourite TV shows and I've watched every episode of, I think, every season since it started, over the moon. So, I was beyond excited to get to hang out with the one and only Dame Prue Leith. Not only has she got the most incredible

• 3:17Fearne Cotton?

  collection of colourful accessories, more than any human on the planet, but she's also got the knowledge, the stories. She's so lovely and generous with her comments to all of the bakers. She works so well with bold, blue-eyed Paul. You've got Alison and Noel there. It's just such a great team and I love the show and I was so thrilled to have Prue on Happy Place. We nattered about so much good stuff. The behind the scenes of Bake Off, which I was very intrigued in. By the way, you'll get to hear what Paul Hollywood gets up to in the breaks. You're not going to believe it. We're going to talk about growing up in South Africa, finding love again after being widowed, and also about imposter syndrome, which is such a... God, I feel like so bored even saying imposter

• 4:02Fearne Cotton?

  syndrome. We all talk about it so much, but Prue has got an entirely different take on it, which I absolutely love. Also, we've never talked about this on Happy Place before. We talk about assisted dying and you'll find out why and more about that a little bit later. I really hope you love this one.

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• 5:31Speaker 06

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• 6:05Fearne Cotton?

  Right, let's crack on. Here's the show.

• 6:28Fearne Cotton?

  Prue, it's so lovely to have you on Happy Place. I'm so excited to chat to you.

• 6:32Speaker 02

  Well, I'm rather excited to meet you because we never have.

• 6:36Fearne Cotton?

  We've never met. Have we avoided each other all this time?

• 6:39Speaker 02

  I know, it's extraordinary.

• 6:40Fearne Cotton?

  It is, considering me and my children and my stepkids from back in the day are huge Bake Off fans. We do not miss an episode. Our whole.

• 6:49Speaker 02

  Oh, well, that's good.

• 6:50Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, the whole autumn sort of revolves around watching Bake Off. It's.

• 6:54Speaker 02

  Well, it's about to start again.

• 6:56Fearne Cotton?

  It's about to start again and we're so excited. I mean, it is a cultural moment each year that it comes on the TV. And I'm imagining it must feel quite wonderful to be part of something that captures the nation like that.

• 7:08Speaker 02

  It is. It is lovely. And I must say, it astonishes me at how, what a range of people watch it, you know. I meet really old men who love it and tiny children who you'd think, oh, not, you know, they're still watching CBeebies or something. And they love it.

• 7:28Fearne Cotton?

  It's just the perfect combination of, you know, me and my daughter, for instance, love the actual baking part of it. We both love baking cakes. I was gonna try and bake something today, but I'm having my kitchen decorated, so I've got no access to my kitchen, which is bloody annoying. But we love it. And my son, who's on the cusp of the teen years, who I could easily lose to YouTube or gaming or whatever. He loves the drama of it and the characters. You always get great characters on the show. It's amazing.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  That's what I love about it, is the bakers. I mean, the bakers make the show because they are. I don't know whether it is that bakers as a group are particularly nice people, maybe. I've always thought fishmongers are nicer than butchers. I don't know why, but in my experience.

• 8:09Fearne Cotton?

  There's science behind it.

• 8:10Speaker 02

  Pretty old, they are. And maybe bakers are just nice people. I don't know. But we always seem to get a bunch of people who are delightful, very different, come from every walk of life. And they are, they're just, you're sorry to see everyone go.

• 8:29Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I bet. I know, because you build up, you build up a rapport with them and a relationship and then they're out. They're booted out.

• 8:35Speaker 02

  I know, it's horrible.

• 8:35Fearne Cotton?

  It is. There's always tears. It's really sad. I mean, I know you can't say too much about this series. It's all tightly under wraps. But the thing I need to know is, when they're doing the big bakes, they're doing the, you know, the big showpiece at the end. You and Paul will go off and have your time out. What are you guys up to?

• 8:51Speaker 02

  Well, you know, the best thing about Bake Off from my point of view, apart from the fact that I love the show anyway, is that I have so much time off. I mean, if you think about it, sometimes they, the showstopper can take five hours.

• 9:04Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 9:04Speaker 02

  The morning bake, you know, for, you know, the signature or, or the afternoon technical, they, they can be two hours or two and a half hours. So in my Bake Off time, and that's eight, nine years now, I've done nine years, in those nine years, I've written two novels, three cookbooks, an autobiography and another memoir.

• 9:25Fearne Cotton?

  I mean, so you're not, you're not chilling out, you're not chatting to Paul Hollywood about your holidays.

• 9:30Speaker 02

  No, no, he's too busy, he's too busy watching racing.

• 9:33Fearne Cotton?

  Is that what he's doing?

• 9:35Speaker 02

  No, I think, well, he's probably, I don't know what he's doing, he's, recently he's been studying for his helicopter pilot licence.

• 9:43Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, really?

• 9:44Speaker 02

  And that's a lot of academic work, you, it's, you have to be so clever.

• 9:48Fearne Cotton?

  Would you let him take you up in his chopper?

• 9:50Speaker 02

  Um, I don't go in his Lamborghini because he drives it too fast for me.

• 9:55Fearne Cotton?

  Right.

• 9:56Speaker 02

  I do go in his Rolls Royce, which I love.

• 9:59Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, delightful.

• 10:00Speaker 02

  I feel like, proper day.

• 10:02Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I love that.

• 10:04Speaker 02

  And he drives it very slowly.

• 10:06Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  So that's okay.

• 10:08Fearne Cotton?

  Well, you have to, because you don't want to crash into any, anything, Bollards, other cars in a roller, no way.

• 10:14Speaker 02

  No, so, so he probably thinks about cars and, um, but he's a very interesting fellow for, I'm so lucky because, you know, to work for somebody for nine years and still like him, it's quite.

• 10:25Fearne Cotton?

  I know, it's like going on holiday with someone, you know, you really do test whether you get on or not.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:31Fearne Cotton?

  And you do, which is great. I mean, as you said, you know, you're using even your moments off during the filming of a show to do stuff, you've always been incredibly busy, just going, you know, you're also doing this.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  You can talk, Fern.

• 10:44Fearne Cotton?

  I know, but you're doing this also in the States, you're, you've got this double life of doing the same show over in the States, which is a huge big deal over there as well. Do you like to constantly be challenged or busy?

• 10:55Speaker 02

  I do, I like to be busy, I really do, and in fact, if I've had a whole run of being really, really busy and then I finally, and I'm working towards some time off, those first few days of being off, I'm absolutely disconnected, I, I, I'm actually uneasy because I'm used to being on it all the time and busy, busy, busy, but then I get into it and think this is heaven. And and actually I've had a few much easier weeks since we we stopped filming Bake Off. Um, and it's been great. We've had a bit of holiday and we're going to go to Beetha next week for holiday.

• 11:32Fearne Cotton?

  I've just been.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:33Fearne Cotton?

  Right.

• 11:34Speaker 02

  Love it there.

• 11:35Fearne Cotton?

  What do you do in Ibiza? Have you not?

• 11:36Speaker 02

  I've never been.

• 11:37Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, I'm gonna give you some good restaurants.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  All right, good.

• 11:39Fearne Cotton?

  And I hope that they're okay, because otherwise that's gonna be very embarrassing, giving you tip-offs for shit restaurants.

• 11:44Speaker 02

  I tell you what, I'm so greedy. They'll be lovely.

• 11:47Fearne Cotton?

  No, I've got two excellent restaurants that I'll write down for you.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  Okay, good.

• 11:50Fearne Cotton?

  Because I heard you on Chris Evans' radio show a while back, saying that actually time off has felt more important than ever.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:57Fearne Cotton?

  The age you're at now, the stage you're at in life, you wanna travel, you wanna see the world, you wanna do things.

• 12:02Speaker 02

  I do, which is why I gave up Celebrity Bake Off, because I just suddenly realised that I was working the whole summer. And although I was enjoying it, I just, you know, we hadn't had a summer holiday for eight years.

• 12:15Fearne Cotton?

  Really?

• 12:17Speaker 02

  And and and John and I have only been married thirteen years or fourteen years or something. So it seemed a bit mean to say we'll never have a summer holiday. We had obviously had winter holidays. But we had never had a summer holiday. And I, so I I went off to Bake Off, the Love Productions, and said, I think it's time I stopped. Because I I need to have some summer off. And they said, well, you don't have to stop altogether, you know, don't exaggerate. You just want a holiday. Why don't you just drop one? Because I was doing American, British and celebrity.

• 12:53Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, it's a lot.

• 12:55Speaker 02

  And and at one point, um, Junior as well, so.

• 12:59Fearne Cotton?

  And do you find it hard to turn down things or say no to things?

• 13:02Speaker 02

  If I like the idea of them, I always find it hard. But, um, well, you know, it's easy to turn down stuff you don't wanna do anyway.

• 13:11Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But when you love it, it is hard. And I mean, also, if you like being busy, I like being busy. I'm no good if I haven't got a project, something I'm working on. I I wanna feel excited when I get out of bed, that there's something ahead that I'm not quite sure about, or or there's just natural excitement. It'll be interesting, exactly. It's, I don't know quite what to do when I'm idle. I do find that quite uncomfortable. Where do you think that drive comes from? Because not everybody's built like that. You know, I know people, great friends of mine, and there's no judgment, Carl, saying this. They really like chilling out and, you know, having free time to do nothing.

• 13:47Speaker 02

  Paul was like that. Paul does, only does bake off. Um, because he, he really enjoys his leisure time. He loves his cars, he loves his motorbikes, he's learning to ride, drive a helicopter. And he has good friends and he, he just, he, he's always saying to me, why don't you just enjoy your life? Stop doing all this stuff. And that is how I enjoy my life. So we are very different from that point of view. But, um, no, I, I do, I do love it. I'm like you. I have to have something. And I like new things that I've never done before. That's, that's what, I'm always tempted to do something when it's new.

• 14:28Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, it's interesting. I think you learn so much about yourself and,

• 14:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:32Fearne Cotton?

  you know, uncover capabilities you didn't know you had. It's, it's so interesting. Is that, is that something that was born in childhood, would you say, from your parents?

• 14:40Speaker 02

  Um, I think it was probably not, certainly not my father, who was, um, definitely in the, um, he preferred relaxing more than work. He was very good at, he was the, you know, was the director of a huge company and he worked extremely hard. But he, he, he used to talk about when, as soon as he could retire, he and my mother would go off and live in Portofino.

• 15:01Fearne Cotton?

  Lovely.

• 15:03Speaker 02

  Um, however, he died when he was fifty four, so he never, he never managed the Portofino dream. But my mum, who was an actress and a, a theatre producer and had a theatre company. This is all in, in South Africa. She was more like me. She, she was terrifically energetic and really good at what she did. She was campaigning against, against apartheid.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  She ran all sorts of theatrical things. She she managed to get the British Writers' Union to drop their ban on books going to South Africa because she she came to England just to tell them burning the books is not the way to change minds. You need to plays to get on the stage that talk about fairness and race and and you need not to cut down the one, you know, the thing that can help you. And so she persuaded them.

• 16:04Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 16:04Speaker 02

  So she was she was quite a campaigner and and and great.

• 16:09Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 16:09Speaker 02

  Very good actress.

• 16:10Fearne Cotton?

  It's interesting when you look at that kind of nature nurture aspect of life. I certainly think about it as a mother myself, you know, how much are our kids by osmosis sort of picking up and seeing of, you know, work ethic or drive and or how much you just, I don't know, you turn up on planet earth with that instilled, I don't know.

• 16:29Speaker 02

  That's it's very interesting. I've got two children, one is adopted and Cambodian and my daughter. And she is a constant delight. And of course, I'm thinking all the time, well, I've got some unknown Cambodian couple to thank for that. I mean, she's musical for a start.

• 16:47Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 16:48Speaker 02

  I am totally, totally not musical. I mean, I I can't keep a tune, I I'm tone deaf, you know, I'm hopeless. But she is really musical. So that's that's amazing. Now she is energetic and on it and does lots of things. And now if she picked up any of that, I mean, I've had her since she was a baby. So she could have picked up some of that from me. On the other hand, it could all be a hope, you know, I have no idea.

• 17:13Fearne Cotton?

  We just don't know.

• 17:14Speaker 02

  My son is a politician and he works extremely hard, mostly in his head. You know, he's very intellectual, he writes and and he's a politician. I mean, he doesn't mind if. Anything that he would regard as trivial, he doesn't bother with. So if I go to their house, I drive them mad because I start doing the washing up and clearing up and rearranging the fridge and throwing away all the rubbish.

• 17:45Fearne Cotton?

  I love that.

• 17:45Speaker 02

  They don't do that.

• 17:48Speaker 02

  It's not important.

• 17:49Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 17:50Speaker 02

  But I mean, I have to do it.

• 17:51Fearne Cotton?

  Same. I love a good clear out. I love a clean surface. It's my favourite.

• 17:54Speaker 02

  I know, I'm completely, I just, my, my husband sometimes says, he said, if I stand still for five minutes, you'll put me in a black bag and put me out in the bin.

• 18:06Speaker 02

  And he gets, and he, he, he accuses me of having a sterile, not sterile, but that I'd like a sterile.

• 18:13Fearne Cotton?

  No, same.

• 18:14Speaker 02

  Which I resent, but he, he's a complete, if he opens a packet, he simply opens it, takes out what he wants, leaves the knife that he's pinched from my knife rack. He'll leave the knife next to it that he's opened it with. He'll leave all wrapping papers there. And he'll take them, what it was out and use it. Or if it doesn't interest him, he'll just plonk it down and leave it.

• 18:43Fearne Cotton?

  No, that is unacceptable.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  It's totally unacceptable, but I have to accept it.

• 18:47Fearne Cotton?

  No, it's the worst. I will often surface clean under someone's plate when they're still eating. Like, I just want, I want the surface shining.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  I should be married to you.

• 18:58Fearne Cotton?

  We should be, we'd be a perfect compatible couple. I would often like a surface cleaner bottle just strapped to my arm. So I don't have to keep picking it up because that's just, this is the noise of me in the kitchen.

• 19:10Fearne Cotton?

  That's, you know, I'm in the house because that's the noise. I'm constantly cleaning surfaces. It's a drink.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  My husband once said, if you go before me, I'm going to bury you with a J cloth.

• 19:21Fearne Cotton?

  Same snap, I love it. You met your husband, as you say, you've only been married thirteen years, but you met him later in life. I mean, I think this is a really interesting subject because I've got a lot of friends now who are either going through divorce or haven't met the person that they're, you know, hoping to spend their life with. In, you know, in our mid forties, panicking, panicking, they're not going to meet someone. What would you say?

• 19:42Speaker 02

  Well, I was seventy.

• 19:43Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, amazing, yeah.

• 19:45Speaker 02

  And in fact, when I met John, I had been a widow for eight years.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  And, um, and I hadn't ever felt any pangs or looked at somebody and thought, oh, you know, I fancy you or anything. I just sort of thought that was part of me had disappeared with my husband. It was my first husband who I adored because we had a very happy marriage. And, um, so, you know, I was content really. And I'd got, I'd got to that stage when you think, um, that actually living alone is great. You suddenly realise that you can have, that there are no crumbs in the bed. That's a great relief, that, you know, that you don't have to check in and say, I'm, I'm running late or I missed the train. Or some, you don't have to produce meals on time, your children have left home, you're not responsible to anybody.

• 20:37Speaker 02

  And you can stay up all night reading a book if you want to, and you don't have to get up in the morning if you don't have to. And it's, it's just so lovely to have that freedom. So I thought I was, that was it, you know, lovely, that suited me fine. It took me a little while to get used to actual widowhood, but then, you know, I had friends and I was fine. And then I met John and I thought, this is very odd, I actually am interested in that chap. And I realised that he is much younger than me. He, I, I, I think he was sixty four and I was seventy. And I, I was giving a talk in a, in a, in a church, you know, which was being used as a venue for a literary festival.

• 21:21Speaker 02

  And I knew he was going to turn up to it. So I thought, well, I'd better put my cards on the table right now because I don't want to get into any kind of relationship with this guy. If if he's gonna walk away the minute he discovers that I'm much older than him. So I worked into my talk, the fact that I was seventy, I said, you know, I was. I thought, well, here we are to the door before the end of this. But he wasn't. So he he stuck around, so he's still there.

• 21:50Fearne Cotton?

  That's amazing.

• 21:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:52Fearne Cotton?

  That's so great. But it's so, you know, we had Zandra Rhodes on the podcast, maybe last year. And and we had this chat, you know, she met the love of her life, I think she was in her sixties. And there is this cultural pressure that you're meant to have met the person, you know, your twenties or your thirties. And then if you don't, that's it. And there's, especially for women, this fear that you're not gonna meet a life partner and it's absolute bollocks.

• 22:18Speaker 02

  It's absolute bollocks. Of course, it's not guaranteed, but it's not guaranteed at the age of twenty. Or thirty or forty.

• 22:25Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 22:26Speaker 02

  But I do have a lot of single women friends who, over the years, have said to me, hasn't John got a rubber? You know, why can't you find me a John, you know?

• 22:39Speaker 02

  But actually, if I look at them, most of them, most of them have ended up with somebody they truly adore. It may may have taken a long time, but, you know, they have.

• 22:51Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's beautiful. And he's got quite the fan base now, hasn't he, from appearing on your TV show?

• 22:58Speaker 02

  I'm slightly regretting this, I tell you.

• 23:02Fearne Cotton?

  He's got quite the fan base.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  Well, he certainly has. What happened was because we decided I wanted to do a. ITV asked me if I'd do a Saturday morning chop and chat show. And so I said, yes, I would, but I wanted it to be in my house because I really. You know, the only thing that I find difficult with Bake Off is that I generally have to get up at half past four or five in the morning.

• 23:30Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 23:30Speaker 02

  To get there or stay the night before. So, so there's a lot of very early mornings and late nights. So I thought, well, that's great. I'll just come downstairs.

• 23:41Fearne Cotton?

  Heaven.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  When, when they're ready.

• 23:43Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 23:44Speaker 02

  So, um, uh, and then I, so we were planning it and, and they were very good. They said, they agreed that I didn't have to just cook. That I could have people like you. You, you think you'll get away, but you won't.

• 23:56Fearne Cotton?

  I'll come on your show. Oh, my god.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  Good. Oh, well, that wasn't a struggle then.

• 24:01Fearne Cotton?

  No, no, I'm there. Get me to the Cotswolds.

• 24:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, lovely. Well, so I've had really interesting people come and that's fun. And we've, and we've broadened the whole thing from cooking to it's about the Cotswolds and farming and, and, and what I call, there's a strand in it, which is food heroes, which is every sort of cranky, quirky farming or, you know, that we, we went to visit a llama farm the other day to find out how you make money out of llamas, you know, that's, it's rural, basically. But, um, that was fun. And then John, so then I thought, we need John in this because he can go and do a lot of the outdoor stuff because he's very good on machines.

• 24:47Fearne Cotton?

  Go to the llama farm.

• 24:48Speaker 02

  And he loves, he loves anything that makes a noise, you know. And, um, so I thought, and I, but mainly I thought it would be nice to have him in, in the program because if we're filming for three weeks and you know what that means in the way of lights and cameras and cables everywhere, you can't get to your own fridge or your

• 25:09Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 25:10Speaker 02

  drawer because there's all this clobber in the way. And I thought he'd get really irritated if this was going on for three weeks. So I talked him into, I mean, he's always up for anything. So he said, sure, okay, I'll do it. Well, he has turned out to be so popular that the other day we're in the co-op.

• 25:30Speaker 02

  The woman in the checkout recognized John and she said, oh, she said, you're the man off the telly. She said, you're, you're, you're the Cotswold kitchen. You're John Playfair. She says, oh, I love you. I love you. She said, can we have a, can I have a selfie? And she's right in her face and a great deal of I love you, I love. And I am there packing the bags. I'm putting them. Yeah. And I thought, mm, this was a mistake.

• 25:57Fearne Cotton?

  We've created a monster here.

• 25:59Speaker 02

  This is a big mistake.

• 26:00Fearne Cotton?

  This is so good.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:01Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, but it's so lovely. And I love that you've made it work for you. It's in your house. And also that gives it such a lovely, relaxed feel. You feel like you're getting a peek inside your life and your relationship.

• 26:16Speaker 03

  This is Nick and Jack from the best one yet. And we are excited to tell you about Walmart Business. Staying ahead of business trends means moving fast and adapting quickly. Walmart Business helps you simplify operations so you can focus on building the next big thing. Find exactly what your organization needs with their ever expanding business assortment and everyday low prices. Keep your momentum going fast with reliable shipping and fulfillment.

• 26:37Speaker 04

  Eligible organizations can take advantage of tax free shopping, both in store and online, saving you more while getting you everything you need.

• 26:43Speaker 03

  It's Walmart built for your business.

• 26:46Speaker 04

  Sign up for a free Walmart Business account today at business.walmart.com.

• 26:51Speaker 05

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• 27:22Speaker 06

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• 27:53Speaker 05

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• 28:26Fearne Cotton?

  Going back to your childhood in South Africa, where did that first love of cooking come from? Was it again, people cooking around you?

• 28:34Speaker 02

  It wasn't South Africa at all. I mean, my mother wasn't interested in cooking. She couldn't cook at all. In fact, I think she's probably the worst cook I've ever met. We all dreaded going to my mother's for lunch.

• 28:45Fearne Cotton?

  Really?

• 28:46Speaker 02

  If she was cooking, because she's a dreadful cook. But that was because, you know, I came from this very well-off, South African, white, privileged family. And we had a cook, and he was brilliant. So we ate fantastically well at home. But no thanks to my mother.

• 29:05Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  All thanks to Charlie, who was a great cook. I think as a family, we talked about food quite a bit. I remember my mother waxing lyrical about the joys of snails and garlic, which she'd first eaten in France.

• 29:20Fearne Cotton?

  That's one thing I could never eat.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  Are you sure?

• 29:24Fearne Cotton?

  It's the texture.

• 29:25Speaker 02

  How do you know?

• 29:26Fearne Cotton?

  It's the texture. There's absolutely, I've never eaten an oyster, a mussel. I feel like I'm, uh, it's absolutely, I know, the snails. Picking them out with a little stick, absolutely not.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  Well, I have to tell you, the texture's the best thing about them. Anyway, and the next best thing is the taste of garlic.

• 29:43Fearne Cotton?

  Garlic, I'm here for. It's just this gooey, is it rubbery?

• 29:48Speaker 02

  It's chewy.

• 29:50Speaker 02

  They're lovely.

• 29:51Fearne Cotton?

  Absolutely not. I'm unconvinced.

• 29:54Speaker 02

  But anyway, my mother was describing to me how to, how she loved snails and garlic. And in posh restaurants, you're given a little tool to pick up the snail with, like tongs. And they, they clasp, but they're a bit like a cross between a nutcracker and tongs. And they hold the snail so you don't get your hands all buttery. And then you have a toothpick or a little pick. And she was getting so excited about the machinery and the ceremony and the flavour. Actually, talking to you, I'm now dribbling thinking about it. Yum yum yum. So, so we were always greedy.

• 30:33Speaker 02

  And my treat as a child was my dad would take me out by myself for a treat without my brothers. And that was, he would do it for my brothers as well, but they would go and do what they want to do. But he and I always went off to a restaurant and had, you know. Now it seems sort of funny because it was things like chicken in the basket.

• 30:57Speaker 02

  Sort of what wouldn't be amazing today, but what was for a child is terrific. So I think I, I loved, I was always interested in food and I loved food, but I'd never thought of it from a cook's point of view. I just thought of it eating it. I liked eating it. And then when I, when I was in Paris at university, I suddenly realised that really grown up, intelligent people liked food. They all talked about food all the time. They all cared about food. If you were in a pub or in a brasserie and you were standing at a counter,

• 31:38Speaker 02

  you could have a captain of industry, some posh guy, standing next to the metro worker. And they would both agree on where the best, you know, the best way to, that frites should be made. You know, how many fried times they should be fried and, and where the best steak came from and who were the best growers of, you know, something. And I thought this is interesting that people are interested in food. And then, of course, you can't actually live in France for two years and not get interested.

• 32:13Fearne Cotton?

  No, of course not.

• 32:14Speaker 02

  So in the end, I, at that point, I said to my dad, could I, could I um do a court of law cook course? And it's a year long. And he said, I'll, I'll pay for, for, for three months. Because he said, so far, you have, he said, because you've left before three months is up anyway. Because he said, you, you left the drama school, you left art school, you left architecture school, you left the university where you were doing a BA, all of them in about three months. So what makes you think you're going to stick to this one?

• 32:56Speaker 02

  And I, I said, I really, really wanted to. Anyway, so I did the three month course.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  And um, and I, it did stick it.

• 33:05Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 33:06Speaker 02

  Lovely.

• 33:07Fearne Cotton?

  Did it, did it feel different to the other courses that you'd taken? Like, this is my thing?

• 33:10Speaker 02

  Yes, no, what, what happened? First of all, I, I went to drama school because I thought, my mum's an actress, I love the theatre, we went to the theatre a lot as kids. So I thought, well, that's what I'll do, you know, I'll do what my mum does. Um, but I wasn't any good at it. And so I, I didn't really enjoy, and I found I didn't really enjoy it. I liked the plays and I liked the rehearsals, but I just didn't actually like the acting. And so then I thought, oh, I'd rather be a set designer than I can still be in the theatre. But I can do, because I'd been good at art at school, so I thought I'd be good. So I swapped to art school, because in those days, once you were in the university, you could swap from one

• 33:51Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  course to another without too much difficulty. And then I went to the art school and the, the head of the art department stood behind me in a, in a life class. And he, um, he said, what are you doing in my, he was Norwegian, so he said, what are you doing in my art school? And I said, well, I'm trying to learn to draw. So he said, I would give it up now if I was you. You have no talent.

• 34:18Fearne Cotton?

  Encouraging.

• 34:20Speaker 02

  Nowadays, of course, you're never allowed to be, you have to be encouraging children.

• 34:24Fearne Cotton?

  Absolutely.

• 34:25Speaker 02

  Which I think is a mistake, really. I mean, you know, he saved me two years. I would have gone on, I would have happily gone on for two years. I was having a lovely time. I was spending most of the time on the beach.

• 34:36Fearne Cotton?

  Heaven.

• 34:37Speaker 02

  You know, Cape Town is a great place to be at university.

• 34:41Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, my God, I bet.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  So I would be happily stayed there for two years doing, not not succeeding. And then, and then I'd had this much the same experience at architecture school where I couldn't do the maths. And in those days, you had to be able to do the maths. Now you don't. You have to be able to work a computer.

• 34:58Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, get out, I ought to do it.

• 35:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly, probably, yes. And so then I went, then I went, I I had I had gone to do a BA. And I was doing a BA in French and logic and I couldn't handle the logic, but I liked the French. So then I said to my long suffering dad, you know, I'd much rather learn French from the French. You know, I'm I'm learning French from an Afrikaans teacher and I'm sure her French is very good, but it didn't sound right. Can, anyway, so he was very tolerant. I mean, I think one of the things I I took from my dad

• 35:42Speaker 02

  was that I didn't think you should expect children to know what they want to do when they just left school. Why would they?

• 35:48Fearne Cotton?

  It's crazy.

• 35:49Speaker 02

  Why would they?

• 35:50Fearne Cotton?

  I only worked it out about five years ago.

• 35:53Speaker 02

  Well, exactly.

• 35:54Fearne Cotton?

  I hadn't, you know, you think, you know.

• 35:55Speaker 02

  I keep on reworking it out, making, well, I also want to do that and I want to do that.

• 35:59Fearne Cotton?

  Absolutely.

• 36:00Speaker 02

  And, I mean, you and I are lucky now because we're we're likely to get the chances to do what we want to do, at least have a crack at it.

• 36:07Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:10Speaker 02

  But when you're nineteen and people keep saying to you, you've got to make up your mind, what do you want to do?

• 36:15Fearne Cotton?

  It's crazy.

• 36:16Speaker 02

  If they want to be a lawyer, they never worked in a lawyer's office.

• 36:19Fearne Cotton?

  You need to go and try it all out. You need to experiment.

• 36:21Speaker 02

  Anyway. So he was pretty tall and he would just basically waited for us all to grow up.

• 36:27Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, that's amazing. Well, he gave you the time.

• 36:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:30Fearne Cotton?

  So having done that Cordon Bleu course and having that feeling of, oh, this is, this is my thing, I, I think.

• 36:36Speaker 02

  I really want to do this.

• 36:37Fearne Cotton?

  Lighting you up. How do you go from that to then having an incredibly successful restaurant that everyone's talking about, you know, you've, you've built up a clientele that come back and back because they know what they're going to get and they know they love it. There'll be loads of people that will have done that course that, that didn't go on to have that sort of success. What, what set you apart?

• 36:58Speaker 02

  Well, I started with the catering because I didn't have any money. I couldn't, there was no point in thinking about a restaurant. Of course, I, I dreamt of a restaurant because all cooks do. I mean, if you're a cook, you want to cook for other people. I think all cooks want to see people having. What they don't realise is actually if you're the chef, you never do see the other people. You never see the people eating.

• 37:19Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 37:20Speaker 02

  But you are, you want to cook for other people. So I, I am basically, when I left the Cordon Bleu, I had already begun to get a few customers when I was a student who offered me, you know, other caterers, grown up caterers would ask me to come and do a day's work for them occasionally. Because they used to apply to the school and say, have you got any students who want to earn a bit? So I was, I started like that and then I started having my own customers. And then I had a bed sitter in her school and I, I used to do, I started my catering company from there. And I had the biggest luck because it was up on the fourth floor of a, basically a rooming house.

• 38:05Speaker 02

  And the landlady had no sense of smell. So she never came up to the fourth floor. She had no idea that I probably had live lobsters in the bath or lettuces or.

• 38:22Fearne Cotton?

  That's amazing.

• 38:23Speaker 02

  And she didn't, you know, if she'd come in to my room, she'd probably have found me, you know, making smoked salmon sandwiches on the dressing table or something. So, but that's how I started. And then I got a client, some young lads in the city. Who were sugar brokers or something, but they were quite young and they were about five or six of them. And they wanted to have a one smart lunch a week where they could woo clients, you know, sort of directors dining rooms. And they had, so they had turned one of their offices every Friday into a director's dining room. And they'd ask people there. And after about, um, I'd been do, I'd been doing Friday lunches for them for, I don't know, many months.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  Perhaps five or six months. And they asked me if I'd like to join them. For lunch, they were just saying, thank you for feeding us so well. So I was sitting there. I was quite nervous. And the senior partner, who was probably all of thirty, but he seemed very grown up to me.

• 39:25Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 39:26Speaker 02

  Um, he started to look in the sal, look at the salad with very sort of concentrated um intent. And I thought, ah, he doesn't, he never, he's never seen a designer salad before. He doesn't know what arugula is or lamb's lettuce or. Coss or whatever. And I was feeling quite smug. And then he put his hand into the salad bowl and he pulled out. Quite slowly, a piece of string. And then he pulled a little bit further and the piece of string turned into a chain and then out popped my bath plug.

• 40:04Speaker 02

  And I'm like, I said, well, at least it proves I washed the lettuce.

• 40:10Fearne Cotton?

  That is brilliant.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  And then they all laughed. And they were fine about it, they were fine about it. But, you know, sometimes.

• 40:22Fearne Cotton?

  That's so great.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  Sometimes I think my whole catering.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  So to answer your question, basically, I I started with catering. Going round, you know, people's houses, doing dinner parties, on the tube mostly. And then I got a little van.

• 40:41Fearne Cotton?

  I mean, you set quite the scene, you know, we were talking even off mic earlier about I've got Lulu coming on the podcast soon. And she was someone that would frequent your restaurant, she was there in the mix. It was a cultural moment of having all the rock stars there, the actors, you know, restaurants were the scene. I mean, they still are the scene, but they were really the epicentre of cool back then, where people would congregate and eat and stay up very, very late at night. I mean, imagine that you saw all sorts.

• 41:06Speaker 02

  Well, and I think I was very lucky because I had never, I mean, talk about chutzpah. I had never worked in a restaurant, but I opened one. I'd never taught anybody to cook, but I opened a cookery school. Lack of knowledge does has never seemed to got in my way. To say, well, I'll have, I'll I'll learn as I go, you know. But the that restaurant was very different as a result because I wasn't influenced by anybody else. So I decided what I like when I go to restaurants, I'd like to know what I'm going to pay. I don't want to have a menu with different prices. There are people thinking, oh, do you think my host can afford the very expensive thing? I better have the cheap one.

• 41:51Speaker 02

  I just thought we'll have one price for for four courses, four course meal, one price. You can eat it all or you can eat one, one course, but you have to pay the same. And lots of people said to me, that's crazy thing to do because people, nobody will come. People loved it because they just knew what they were getting.

• 42:11Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 42:11Speaker 02

  It also, you bought what I always felt that what you're doing when you're going to a really good restaurant. It's not the food you're paying for, you're paying for being there, for sitting in that chair, in that room, in that company, having, it's the experience.

• 42:26Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 42:27Speaker 02

  Not the fact of what you're eating. So if you booked in my restaurant. We never said you've got to be out by nine o'clock, or you had the you had the place for the evening. So it was quite expensive, but it was you had the whole evening and you could eat what you like. So all of that was different. And then I didn't I didn't understand why restaurants menus should be written in French. In those days, all posh restaurants had French menus. Ridiculous. My kitchen staff didn't talk French, so why on earth were we expecting the customers to talk French? We had, I thought, if you're going to sit there all evening, you need a really comfortable chair. So you don't want one of those chairs that scrapes and make a terrible noise on the hard floor.

• 43:12Speaker 02

  So we had, so we bought the best office chairs with five casters so they could swivel very easily and quietly. They were easy to get in and easy to get out, and people absolutely loved them. We had carpet on the ceiling so to dampen the sound. You know, it was just that we had things that I thought would be a good idea without any knowledge of how restaurants worked.

• 43:38Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 43:39Speaker 02

  And they worked.

• 43:40Fearne Cotton?

  It's kind of flipping, you know, we hear a lot in this day and age, I think, especially in sort of female-based conversations around imposter syndrome, like I shouldn't do this thing, or I don't feel like I belong here. But actually, you flipped it on your head entirely to use that to your advantage of I'm not going to look at what everybody else is doing or worry about what I've done before. This is what I feel intuitively is gonna work. Did you ever have any level of imposter syndrome? I mean, it's such a new term that gets battered about. But I don't know if it's hindering us more talking about it.

• 44:15Speaker 02

  I mean, I don't think anybody who's highly successful

• 44:21Speaker 02

  doesn't think, how did I get here? This is ridiculous. I don't deserve it. I think there's a bit of that. You must have that.

• 44:27Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, my God, of course.

• 44:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. So if that's for imposter syndrome, certainly I do. And I put it down to amazing good luck. And the fact that I have a lot of energy, which is is God given. It's not, I. I can't take any credit for the fact that I wake up in the morning and think, let's do it. I don't think you can blame people who are depressed and unhappy. It's not their fault. It's a, it's a disease. It's a real problem. But I've been so lucky in having the energy and the sort of general enthusiasm. I mean, I'm sure it.

• 45:06Speaker 02

  One of my children did once describe me as very tiring.

• 45:14Speaker 02

  Most mothers describe their children as tiring.

• 45:17Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, the other way around.

• 45:20Speaker 02

  She's so tiring.

• 45:23Fearne Cotton?

  But I, I, I love, I love hearing about that, that, you know, you've got an idea. You want to give something a go. You bloody well do it. I think we so often stop ourselves from trying new things because we think, I don't have the experience. I've never taught. Cookery before. I've never done whatever the thing is. We, we block ourselves from doing it. And actually, the only thing stopping you is yourself. You've got to give it a try.

• 45:43Speaker 02

  That and also if you're, if, if it's something like a business, I've only ever had one little rule for myself and that's hire, hire people who are better than you.

• 45:52Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 45:53Speaker 02

  I mean, you know, why surround yourself with people who know less than you do?

• 45:57Fearne Cotton?

  And don't think you can do it all either. Like that's, I'm the same. I'm like, I need all the people that are amazing because I can only do one thing.

• 46:04Speaker 02

  Well, exactly. And I, I, and I, and I'm still like that. I mean, Emma, who's my P A. I mean, I couldn't do any of the stuff she does. I mean, she's amazing. She's just like a little machine. And so calm and efficient and it all just fantastic. I would be running around, you know, I'd probably get it done, but it would not be smoothly as she does.

• 46:27Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 46:27Speaker 02

  And, you know, you, you don't have an accountant who can, who can only add up as well as you can. That would be a disaster, wouldn't it?

• 46:34Fearne Cotton?

  Correct. Yeah.

• 46:35Speaker 02

  So I do, I do try to surround myself with better people than me.

• 46:40Fearne Cotton?

  Would you say you're a workaholic?

• 46:42Speaker 02

  I suppose so. I mean, if a workaholic is somebody who really loves work and probably prefers it to most things.

• 46:48Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 46:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. But then I've made most things I like into my work.

• 46:53Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 46:53Speaker 02

  So that makes work rather better.

• 46:56Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, if you enjoy it.

• 46:58Speaker 02

  And what I, I, I don't know, I know you write novels too. And by the way, much more successfully than I do.

• 47:04Fearne Cotton?

  I don't know about that.

• 47:05Speaker 02

  I know you've got bestseller written over all your novels. None of my, I have never, ever had a real bestseller. I've had really good steady sellers, but I've never had.

• 47:16Fearne Cotton?

  Some of mine have done all right. Some not so much. It's this, isn't it? You never know. The ones you think are going to do brilliantly don't, and the ones you're not bothered about do great.

• 47:23Speaker 02

  It's funny, isn't it? It's funny. Yeah, I quite agree. But the thing that gives me the most satisfaction is writing.

• 47:30Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, it's heaven.

• 47:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:32Fearne Cotton?

  It's just the best thing ever.

• 47:37Speaker 03

  This is Nick and Jack from the best one yet. And we are excited to tell you about Walmart business. Staying ahead of business trends means moving fast and adapting quickly. Walmart business helps you simplify operations so you can focus on building the next big thing. Find exactly what your organization needs with their ever expanding business assortment and everyday low prices. Keep your momentum going fast with reliable shipping and fulfillment. Eligible organizations can take advantage of tax free shopping, both in store and online, saving you more while getting you everything you need. It's Walmart built for your business. Sign up for a free Walmart business account today at business.walmart.com.

• 48:12Speaker 05

  A rug shouldn't just fit your room. It should make your home feel finished. Ernesta creates designer quality rugs, custom fit to the exact size of your space. So every room feels beautifully pulled together. Explore Ernesta's range of options, all ready to be custom cut, finished and delivered to your door in as little as two weeks. Start with five samples for just $10 and get $50 toward your rug when you order. Visit ernesta.com today. That's E R N E S T A dot com.

• 48:43Speaker 06

  Hi, it's Danny Pellegrino from Everything Iconic. 12 celebrities, one don and cold, hard cash. From the producers of The Traitors comes The Mob, a new Hulu original series. The iconic Parker Posey hosts this unique reality competition show where 12 celebrity contestants shake down in an Italian villa to win a share of up to $250,000. Watch The Mob, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

• 49:18Fearne Cotton?

  Another conversation that, again, is very female centric, because this is the world that we live in, is how we juggle motherhood, family life, home life and work. You know, the same doesn't equate in terms of men chatting about this at work. You know, they can just go to work and that's still the world we live in today. Whereas, you know, most of my friends who have, you know, full-on careers or are climbing a ladder at work are constantly tearing their hair out. They feel like they're dropping balls left, right and center, that they're never quite doing the parenting or the work well enough. I certainly feel like that constantly, like I'm just scampering around, trying my best to spin all of these plates and sometimes everything falls to shit. And you just think, what am I doing trying to do it all?

• 50:03Fearne Cotton?

  What's been your take on that, running businesses, starting new projects and having a family?

• 50:09Speaker 02

  Well, I think, again, it comes to be, it's about timing, isn't it? I mean, if you're lucky enough to do well at something, so you can afford the help. And really, it boils down to getting the help, because it isn't possible to bring up two or three children and have a full-time job without help. And people should just stop feeling neurotic that they have to be with their children every minute of the day and that they, that only mummy can do it. Other people can do it. The difficulty is if you can't afford that other person. And I've always been just simply lucky enough to earn the money fast enough to keep ahead, because I didn't have my children till I was 34.

• 50:51Speaker 02

  So I had my business under my belt before I started breeding. And I think that if I had, I would have never achieved what I have. If I had met my husband and married him, my first husband, when I was, you know, twenty two or three or something, I did meet him then, but I didn't marry him then. Um, if, if we had married that young and I had had my children, I wouldn't, I could not possibly have run the restaurant, opened the school. Because all of that was in ten years. Within ten years, I had got the catering company really set up. By nineteen sixty nine, I opened the restaurant. And the seventies was my most busy year, because then I opened the cookery school.

• 51:37Speaker 02

  And everything was doing incredibly well. And my children were born in nineteen seventy four. So by the time I had my babies, my one baby and adopted the other one.

• 51:50Speaker 02

  I could get first a no pair and then a nanny.

• 51:54Fearne Cotton?

  I mean, there is this sort of toxic messaging that gets floated about that women can have it all in this day and age. That's the messaging and you, you can't.

• 52:02Speaker 02

  No, you can't have it all. And I mean, you can, you can have it all. But what you shouldn't want is to, I don't want to talk for anybody else, because everybody's different. But I, I would not have been a good full-time mother. I would have found the company of young children all the time boring. And tiring.

• 52:24Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 52:25Speaker 02

  And I'd have got ratty and furious with them all the time.

• 52:28Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 52:29Speaker 02

  I think they need relief from their mother.

• 52:32Fearne Cotton?

  Gotcha.

• 52:33Speaker 02

  And you need relief from them.

• 52:35Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 52:36Speaker 02

  And if you can afford some, some help or childminder or somewhere, and even if it's a question of sharing with friends. I know that my my daughter wouldn't live without her friends because they dumped their children on each other.

• 52:49Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 52:50Speaker 02

  They can, you know, have a date night with their husbands and they can sometimes go away for a weekend.

• 52:56Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 52:56Speaker 02

  The children are old enough to just leave them.

• 52:59Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I know.

• 53:00Speaker 02

  Or there's a granny. I mean, my my son has three children. My son's mother-in-law is a brilliant mother-in-law. She's she's the absolute ideal granny. She does everything. You know, she makes things with the children for fancy dresses. She she um cooks, she cleans, she takes the kids to the park. She she just slots in all the time.

• 53:25Speaker 02

  And she doesn't have a salary, so that's brilliant.

• 53:28Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, exactly. It's great.

• 53:30Speaker 02

  Well, how many people can have that? They're lucky. I mean, I thi- I think that Ginny, her name is Ginny. I think Ginny is a complete s- complete saint because I would never do that job.

• 53:41Fearne Cotton?

  No, no. I mean, my mum, my mum's, you know, she'll turn up in a four-inch wedge shoe. So she's not going to play football in the park with the kids.

• 53:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:50Fearne Cotton?

  But she'll do the little fun bits here and there. But I think, you know, it's a big ask to be that grandparent that is there helping, dropping everything at all times. And you're so right. You know, I think it's really refreshing hearing you say, you know, that you wouldn't have dealt well with being a full-time mum. I I feel the same. I I need external stimulation from work and

• 54:13Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 54:14Fearne Cotton?

  Challenging myself in lots of ways. And I'm not saying like there's a wrong or a right, but it feels like there's less space to say that out loud. People, I think today, there is so much pressure on women that you should be enjoying every minute of parenting. And it's bloody hard. It's really hard.

• 54:30Speaker 02

  It's not all enjoyable.

• 54:31Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 54:32Speaker 02

  Some of it is definitely not enjoyable.

• 54:34Fearne Cotton?

  No, no, no. No, no.

• 54:37Speaker 02

  But but you know.

• 54:41Speaker 02

  I think, you know, there are mums who absolutely love every minute with their children. And that's fantastic, you know, I'm not saying that's a bad thing.

• 54:51Fearne Cotton?

  We're all different.

• 54:51Speaker 02

  But, boy, you know, hats off to them, I couldn't do that.

• 54:55Fearne Cotton?

  It's full on, it's full on. Something that you've been deeply passionate about, that I've read a fair bit about over the years, is to do with your brother who passed away of bone cancer. And he had a really slow, an awful death. And you've been an advocate for assisted death, which is still unavailable in the UK. You've written letters to the government, you've campaigned. Do you feel like there's any progress with that?

• 55:23Speaker 02

  Oh, there is, it's now, the, it's now got through all its, the, the bill is called the, it's not called assisted dying, but that's basically what it is.

• 55:33Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 55:35Speaker 02

  It's, the proposed legislation has now been through

• 55:42Speaker 02

  the three readings in the, in the Commons. And is set to start going through the House of Lords. Which will be a more difficult struggle to get it through because the Lords are more nervous about assisted dying than the Commons. The country as a whole, about eighty percent of the, of the country would like to have an assisted death if they could.

• 56:09Speaker 02

  And would like to have the law changed. And I think it got through, it got through the Commons, but quite narrowly because interestingly, the House of Commons and the House of Lords, Parliament generally is less representative of the people. Which is interesting, but anyway, they are. Because they're more nervous about the idea, they think that they're, they're, they've got sort of three main objections. One is that they're, they're worried that people will be coerced by greedy relatives into taking death as a way out when they're just after their money or something.

• 56:45Speaker 02

  Or more, which I don't think is likely at all, it's never, there's been, there's been absolutely, all the, all the countries, and there are lots of jurisdictions all over the place. Um, about half the, um, states in the United States, it's legal. It's legal in Canada, it's legal in the Netherlands, it's legal in all those low countries and Belgium and so on. It's legal in Australia, New Zealand, and all over the place, about to be legal in France. And, and in none of those countries has there been any question that any, no hint that, that people have been, nobody's come up and said,

• 57:24Speaker 02

  oh, my mother was bullied into being euthanased by my wicked brother. Or, or, no, it's, it just hasn't happened. So it's, it's, I think that's scaremongering. And then there are other, other objections are that we'll pass a law that says this is only for people who are terminally ill. And then quite soon we'll start saying, oh, no, could anorexic teenagers can do it too, and or we, we ought to allow children to do it, or we ought to allow mentally ill people to do it. Well, I don't think that's likely either. And no other jurisdiction has ever changed their law or widened it or made it more available.

• 58:09Speaker 02

  Yeah. So that hasn't happened. So that's the sort of slippery slope argument. Um, I forget what the other one is, but they, they, anyway, the, so far, we've managed to get it through the Commons, but not yet through the Lords. But we will, but I'm very worried about it because I think, I think it would be such, you know, if we, if we don't get it through this time, because it's, it's come to the, of similar suggestions. Um, have been, have come up as proposed legislation before now, but twice they, it's been kicked out by the Commons. This time is the first time it's has got as far as the Lords, which always takes place after the Commons.

• 58:55Speaker 02

  Um, and I think, obviously, if it's defeated again, it'll be another ten years before it can come up.

• 59:01Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 59:02Speaker 02

  Um, but it will come in the end, because that's the way the world's going.

• 59:06Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, and I guess, you know, unless you've got that personal experience where you've seen someone die in that way.

• 59:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:13Fearne Cotton?

  You're not gonna feel it in that personal.

• 59:15Speaker 02

  We all have, we have this complete vision of, of the perfect death, which we get from the movies, that somebody is lying in a bed and they've got relatives each hand side hand, because Mozart in the background and very soft lighting and it's all very peaceful and lovely. Well, that does occasionally happen, but it is very, very rare. A lot of people, I reckon about seven thousand people die in NHS hospitals, that's the worst place to, to, to be left, is in a hospital. Because they're not allowed to assist you to die. If you're at home or in a hospice, there's a faint chance that a kind doctor might give you a bit more morphine and and you, not to kill you, but to relieve your pain.

• 59:58Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 59:58Speaker 02

  And that will be so much that actually you will get into a coma and drift off. Which is what used to happen a lot, but once Harold Shipman started murdering people. I don't know if you remember, but there was a terrific case where Shipman murdered lots of women. He was a doctor. Um, then the law just got very tight about not allowing morphine to, in case, in case it should kill you.

• 1:00:24Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 1:00:25Speaker 02

  So, but I think, you know, ultimately, Fern, it comes down to such a simple thing. Two arguments, one I feel very strongly about, I think it's my body.

• 1:00:39Speaker 02

  It's the autonomy argument, why can't I have a say in what happens? Why is somebody else making decisions about whether I live or die when I really want to die? And we're only talking about people who are in such agony that they are desperate to die and they're gonna die anyway.

• 1:00:55Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:55Speaker 02

  You know, they are terminally ill, they're going to be dead in six months. So that's um, one argument, and the other is a much more basic, so crude that I feel I should almost not say it, but we would not let a dog die the way we insist humans die.

• 1:01:13Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:13Speaker 02

  We wouldn't let a cat, a horse, a.

• 1:01:18Speaker 02

  You know.

• 1:01:18Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah, I get it. I get it. It's very, very hard.

• 1:01:22Speaker 02

  You need a vet, not a doctor. That's what you need.

• 1:01:24Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, you don't, don't go to the vets. Don't go to the vets for this.

• 1:01:29Speaker 02

  Well, you know, my husband always says to me, when, when I, when I'm particularly dull alley and I'm having old ladies, you know, I, I lose my place or I can't remember what I'm doing or I'm, you know, I can't remember somebody, somebody's name. I call my, my son by my dog's name.

• 1:01:46Fearne Cotton?

  I do that.

• 1:01:48Speaker 02

  My, my husband just says to me, vet.

• 1:01:52Fearne Cotton?

  We're taking Prue to the vets, guys. Let's go. Um, I read that you said you, you feel like you've lived a long life thus far because you are happy. What makes you happy?

• 1:02:04Speaker 02

  Well, I've thought quite a lot about this because I've just written a book, which is not out yet, but, but will be next year, called Being Old. And so I've had to think about it a lot. And I finally concluded that the reason that I'm so enjoying my life is that I'm really healthy and I'm, I, I eat well, I sleep well, and I love well. And if you eat, sleep and love, and it's all satisfactory, why would you not be happy?

• 1:02:36Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, it's the simple stuff.

• 1:02:37Speaker 02

  And how can you be happy if you're, if you don't sleep well and you don't eat well and you aren't, you don't have somebody to love?

• 1:02:44Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:45Speaker 02

  Or something to love. It doesn't have to be a person. It could be an obsession, you know.

• 1:02:49Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, or a dog or a cat. Oh my god, my cats give me so much love. I love them, love them. Yeah, it's the simple stuff. It's always the simple stuff.

• 1:02:56Speaker 02

  It is the simple stuff.

• 1:02:57Fearne Cotton?

  It's nothing more than that. And where would you say your happy place is? It could be a literal place or otherwise.

• 1:03:04Speaker 02

  Well, I have to say, and as I'm sure everybody who asks says this, it's home.

• 1:03:09Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:10Speaker 02

  And it's home for most people because it's, it's where you're comfortable, where what's familiar and with people you love. But my home particularly is wonderful because what happened when John and I finally were living together and our children had all left home. We realised that we were living in huge houses separately, seeing each other every day. Or he would come and stay with me for the night, but he still had his house. And it sort of worked very well, but I suddenly realised that the only way I'm going to be able to, either I stay in this huge, great, beautiful house and spend all the rest, all the money I've earned,

• 1:03:55Speaker 02

  slowly leaking it away on the roof and the garden and the upkeep and all the rest of it. For this great big house that houses two of us. And he had a great big house that he didn't hardly see. But we didn't get together because we both had so much stuff. Who's going to move half, you know, it would be such an awful business to have to move half of my stuff onto the skip, to move his stuff in and half of his stuff onto the skip. So in the end, we said, why don't we just sell both houses and build a new one? And I had at the time a house with a little farm attached and the farm had a little cottage.

• 1:04:40Speaker 02

  So what I did was I sold the big house, fortunately for lots of money, because the Cotswolds. Booming. Booming, which meant that we could afford to build a new house on the footprint of the old farm cottage. We knocked it down and built a modern house. So we built that house together and we did it during Covid. And it was the most wonderful time because construction was allowed. So we could walk down every day, because we were on our own property, so we weren't breaking any laws, and watch what was going on. And so instead of keening about the fact that I was losing my big house and that where we'd lived for forty five years and my kids were brought up there and everything.

• 1:05:26Speaker 02

  Instead of worrying about that, I was thinking ahead all the time. I was thinking about the new place. And it is the most lovely house and it works perfectly. And and now I do do my Cotswold kitchen in it. And John always has a project. He's a great one. He's always outside and he's always got some machine in his hand. And over the, he started building metal sculptures, which is very artistic.

• 1:05:55Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:05:56Speaker 02

  He was a, he was a, um, a fashion designer, women's fashion, and he had factories making women's fashion. But he's obviously artistic.

• 1:06:06Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:07Speaker 02

  So, you know, he makes these great metal sculptures. And then he, um, um, sort of tarted up one of our barns. You know, made it into really lovely. It's got a sort of greenhouse in the bottom of it and a potting shed and all those stuff, which I love. And then he turned a log cabin into a guest house. So he's always doing stuff.

• 1:06:29Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:30Speaker 02

  And a, and a, uh, he's just built a fruit cage. And his latest, and I hope his last project, because this is huge, is a, an enormous dovecote.

• 1:06:44Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:06:44Speaker 02

  Huge thing. It's about twenty four foot high. Anyway, we, we, yesterday we were in a, we were in the village of Avebury, you know, in, down near Salisbury. And I, he said, you're always complaining about that I'm building this ridiculously big dovecote. He said, it's only going to have ten pairs of doves in it. He said, that dovecote over there, medieval one, he said, that has a thousand doves.

• 1:07:08Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, my God, no. Don't get any ideas. Don't get any ideas. Twenty doves is a perfect amount of doves. I love it.

• 1:07:16Speaker 02

  So we're gonna have doves, which will be fun.

• 1:07:18Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, it'll be gorgeous.

• 1:07:20Speaker 02

  And then I hope he'll stop, but he won't, of course. He'll think of something else.

• 1:07:23Fearne Cotton?

  No, gotta keep busy, gotta keep creating. It's gorgeous. Well, I for one am so excited for Bake Off to start. Here's to sleeping well, eating well, and loving well.

• 1:07:35Speaker 02

  Thank you, Beth.

• 1:07:36Fearne Cotton?

  Thank you, Prue.

• 1:07:38Fearne Cotton?

  Oh Prue, I loved that. There were parts of that conversation where I completely forgot I was recording an episode of Happy Place and just felt like I was hanging out with someone incredibly interesting and just diving into all of these stories. I just felt like we were sort of sat in Prue's Cotswold kitchen having a chat, which hopefully, by the way, I will do in actual real life soon. Oh my god. Is that invite real? Am I going on her actual TV show going to her house to hang out with her and John? Let's hope so. Can't wait. The Great British Bake Off starts Tuesday, the 2nd of September. Best birthday treat for me ever. Right, you gorgeous lot. Back here next week with a completely brilliant guest, recorded live at the Happy Place Festival in Tatten Park just this weekend

• 1:08:20Fearne Cotton?

  gone. But in the meantime, a massive thanks again to Prue, to the producer Anushka Tate at Happy Place Studios, and to you, I love ya.

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