The Lady Magazine

15 August 2014

It seems that in Britain today, birds are doing it, bees are doing it – even educated fl eas are doing it. No, not that. Baking. As The Great British Bake Off returns to our screens, it appears that we’ve never been more excited about slipping on our aprons and buttering up our baking tins. Like queuing or saying ‘sorry’ when someone else bumps into us, whipping up something sweet has truly become a national passion, as you can read on page 14. We’ve even got Dame Judi Dench’s very special recipe for panettone bread and butter pudding. Yum. We also have one of our fi nest comics, Griff Rhys Jones, on the extraordinary insight Punch cartoons give us into the lives of everyday Britons during the Second World War; actor Timothy Spall’s wife, Shane, on how he recovered from cancer and their remarkable odyssey around Britain in a barge, and a peep into the secrets of Lady Mayo’s magical lost garden, now brought back to life in her newly published diaries. And if you’re thinking of retiring soon, you’ll fi nd everything you need to know in our special section on page 49. So wherever you are, delve in… and enjoy. Very best wishes, Matt Warren, Editor