Celebrating 50 years of Yours
National treasure Mary Berry has graced our TV screens for 50 years. Here, in a series of throwback snaps, we share the lessons she’s learned along the way
Nothing means more than family
Whether she’s playing croquet with her husband Paul (91) or baking biscuits with her grandchildren, family is everything to Mary (89). “I’m very family oriented – they’re my world,” she said. “I was brought up to believe that it’s family first.”
Mary’s brood are certainly close, and she feels “immensely fortunate” to be surrounded by the people she loves. She worked with her daughter Annabel, a trained cook, for years and is proud grandmother to her teenage children Louis, Hobie and Atalanta, as well as her son Tom’s twins, Abby and Grace. “I’m very lucky,” she said. “There’s nothing more important in our lives than our family.”
Learn to say sorry
It took three proposals before Mary agreed to marry Paul Hunnings, a retired antique book dealer, in 1966. And it was clearly the right decision, because they are still very happy 58 years later. “I love my husband even more than I did when I married him,” said Mary, who cooks for Paul every night.
“A marriage has to be worked at. I never shout. If something irks me, I just go into the garden and do some hoeing.” Mary also believes in resolving your differences before you go to bed. “I’ve learnt to say sorry and it’s important,” she said.
I’ll never retire
Mary wasn’t a fan of academics at school, but domestic science lessons sparked her love of cooking. Seven decades later, she has more than 90 cookbooks, a BAFTA and even a damehood under her belt, yet she has no plans to pack away her pinny. “There’s plenty of time to rest in heaven, so I won’t be retiring,” she said. “I feel very lucky that I’m still able to do it all. To me, the four-letter word ‘work’ means pleasure. It’s what I love.”
Cooking is therapy
It was partly Mary’s love of cookery that helped her cope when her son William tragically died in a car accident in 1989, aged just 19. While she misses him “enormously, every single day”, baking helped her through her heartache. “We lost our joie de vivre and appetite for a very long time,” said Mary, who started her own cookery school at their home in Buckinghamshire, a year after William’s death. “We didn’t go out and survived on homemade soups. Then I had a cook school and it all came back. Cooking and baking is both physical and mental therapy.”
