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Being Old In Conversation with Prue Leith · explore words discover worlds

0:12
SPEAKER_02: Well, a lovely round of applause.
0:15
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
0:16
SPEAKER_02: Thanks ever so much, everyone, for coming.
0:18
SPEAKER_02: It's really great to see you all here.
0:20
SPEAKER_02: I'm Peg Alexander, journalist, broadcaster, presenter.
0:24
SPEAKER_02: You might sometimes see me on TV, hear me on the radio.
0:27
SPEAKER_02: And I've been around Bradford Literature Festival actually since its first one, you know, when it was just a handful of events, very small events, sometimes with only a few people in the room.
0:38
SPEAKER_02: So it's always for me a highlight of the year, and I'm absolutely delighted to be here today because we're going to talk now for the next hour about growing old.
0:49
SPEAKER_02: We could actually, I think we could save through making the most of life and being at your most fabulous and colourful best, even at 86, and we're going to talk about with the one and only Prue Leaf.
1:01
SPEAKER_02: We're so pleased to have you in Bradford Pru.
1:03
SPEAKER_02: Well, Peg, thank you.
1:04
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
1:05
SPEAKER_02: It's a long time since I've been in bedroom.
1:09
SPEAKER_02: And can I say you have not disappointed us in your colourfulness?
1:14
SPEAKER_02: Even your glasses, the fluorescent.
1:16
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you can see, Dunna, you've actually got fluorescent glasses on.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: Well, these are my new glasses.
1:21
SPEAKER_01: I'll give a quick plug.
1:23
SPEAKER_01: You can get pre-leaf glasses.
1:27
SPEAKER_01: These are the new ones.
1:28
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you are known you are known for your love of colour and your love of glasses and your love of jewellery and your love of handbags.
1:36
SPEAKER_02: And in your book, Growing Old, you do talk quite a lot about that.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: Well, I I mean my my feeling about glasses and necklaces is that I mean they don't have to be expensive.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is junk, really, but it's colourful junk, and I enjoy it.
1:52
SPEAKER_01: But I I can never understand why women spend so much time, so much money on shoes and handbags.
1:59
SPEAKER_01: Because where do shoes and handbags live?
2:02
SPEAKER_01: Most of their lives they're in a cupboard or under the table.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: You know, you walk in and maybe somebody admires your shoes as you walk into the restaurant and then they're gone.
2:13
SPEAKER_01: But your specks and your necklaces are right in your whoever's talking to you, they're in your face, aren't they?
2:19
SPEAKER_02: And are they ones from your collection?
2:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because the one thing we will talk about, which I have to admit, I I was amazed when I was reading your book, is a number of different things you have been involved with over your career.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: Peg, I've been around for a very long time.
2:37
SPEAKER_01: I've had lots of time to do lots of things.
2:40
SPEAKER_01: But also I'm really curious, and if some I can never say no to anything, so which has led me into all sorts of things.
2:48
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I have been a restaurateur and a novelist and a travel writer and all sorts of things.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: Um chair of business bodies and I love business.
3:01
SPEAKER_01: I love business.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: And in fact, when I sold all my businesses, because I at one point I had a cookery school, uh Michelin star restaurant, and my catering company, which was what actually made the money is catering.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: You know, more bums on seats is how you make money.
3:17
SPEAKER_01: Michelin star restaurants, I promise you don't make money.
3:20
SPEAKER_01: But um I I uh so you know I I did that for many, many years, and then I decided to sell it all and start writing novels.
3:30
SPEAKER_01: And when I'd sold it, I really realized that I missed business.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: So I started doing little businesses like, you know, specks and and glas and glasses and crockery, I I design crockery and and I'm thrilled to bits because my new range of melamine, very brightly coloured um plates and bowls and stuff, has just been taken by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
3:57
SPEAKER_02: Oh wow, fantastic!
3:58
SPEAKER_01: In the design store, they think it's they think it's art.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: It's not, it's just sploshy, sploshy colour.
4:06
SPEAKER_02: Anyway, I'm very pleased.
4:08
SPEAKER_02: That is fantastic.
4:09
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you say kind of small businesses, but you've sat on the board of some very big businesses as well.
4:14
SPEAKER_02: Including the Halifax.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well the Halifax that was announced this week.
4:18
SPEAKER_01: That was a fair old disaster.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: Um but I'm happy to say I I was long gone by the time it fell to pieces, so I can't, I mean, I can excuse myself, but you know, it was still a good business when I was uh um but yes, I I love business, and the first the first um job I ever got as a non-executive director was on the board of British Rail.
4:43
SPEAKER_01: And I so I was the first woman who'd ever been on the board, and um I was the youngest by far.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: And the reason that I got the job was that the chairman in those days, the chairman chose their boards.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: Now you go through endless panels and you know, quota systems, and you have to have recruitment consultants and yeah and you have to have an outside consultant and nobody must have a vested interest, but in those days the chairman made up his board.
5:12
SPEAKER_01: And the chairman, um I I I mean, I have to admit that it was pure nepotism because he played tennis with my husband every weekend.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: And they were best friends.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: And so and he knew that he knew my businesses.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: So he knew I had I w you know that I I had good businesses.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: So he was.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: And food businesses.
5:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and food businesses.
5:34
SPEAKER_01: And he was very anxious to improve the food on British Rail and the and the w at the time we had lots of hotels in those days, like the Midland.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: Lots of hotels belong belonged to British Rail.
5:50
SPEAKER_01: And so he wanted somebody who had been in the service industry because everybody on his board, they were all Scottish engineers.
5:58
SPEAKER_01: And the first three the first three um board meetings I went to, nobody said a word.
6:06
SPEAKER_01: They never mentioned the passenger or customer once.
6:12
SPEAKER_01: They just talked about it.
6:14
SPEAKER_01: It was like men playing with big trails train track.
6:18
SPEAKER_01: You know, they were we were talking about diagramming, you know.
6:24
SPEAKER_01: Basically, they were playing with trains.
6:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: And and so finally I got my, you know.
6:31
SPEAKER_02: That must have been so intimidating though, Prue, because as you say, you know, you were the first woman to sit there at a time when women didn't routinely sit on boards, you were young.
6:40
SPEAKER_02: You may you were already a successful businesswoman, but that might not have been recognized by those other people.
6:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, that's true.
6:46
SPEAKER_01: But I I think one of the reasons that I have always been quite successful is because I think I lack imagination.
6:54
SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't I don't it never occurs to me that I'll fail.
6:59
SPEAKER_01: It never occurs to me that I I'm I shouldn't do something.
7:02
SPEAKER_01: I think it must be that I had parents who were very encouraging and said you can go wherever you like and you don't, you know.
7:10
SPEAKER_01: They I suppose they made us believe in ourselves.
7:13
SPEAKER_01: And so I I've never thought, and it's partly to do with being South African, because I don't understand about the British class system, so I I didn't have an undue respect for posh people.
7:26
SPEAKER_01: I just thought they were people.
7:28
SPEAKER_01: So it never occurred to me that I shouldn't have an opinion or that I shouldn't be in that company or that I'm not good enough for anything.
7:37
SPEAKER_01: I always rather egotistically thought, of course I'm good enough for it.
7:40
SPEAKER_01: And of course you were.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: And you know, if you have a crack at something, uh uh uh it's not that difficult.
7:47
SPEAKER_01: Anyway.
7:47
SPEAKER_02: Well, you say it's not that difficult.
7:49
SPEAKER_02: I mean, at one point, as you say, yeah um the the South South Africa connection is so important for you, isn't it?
7:55
SPEAKER_02: It's not just that, you know, you kind of mentioned in passing that you're South African.
7:59
SPEAKER_02: I know a lot of the love of colour and things comes from that.
8:02
SPEAKER_02: And and in your book, that comes through really strongly right through to the end.
8:06
SPEAKER_02: Your real deep passion and love for South Africa.
8:08
SPEAKER_02: I do love it, yes, I do love it.
8:10
SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, there's still a lot wrong with South Africa.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean it was good that they finally got rid of a apartheid, but you know, it's now got the classic African corruption problems.
8:25
SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot wrong with it, but it is the most beautiful country.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely the most beautiful country.
8:31
SPEAKER_02: And and in terms of your jewellery, going back to where we started on your jewellery, again, you take quite a lot of South African and African influences, don't you, into your jewelry.
8:41
SPEAKER_01: Well, all of Africa does amazing beading.
8:44
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they're really fantastic and they always have great colours.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, a lot of my jewellery is uh is African.
8:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah.
8:55
SPEAKER_02: So going back, if we go back a bit further then, um, because as I say, I I hadn't realized you'd written so many novels, which we'll come to, um, as well as cookbooks and things, but going back, you you kind of tried a few things, and then you found yourself in Paris, didn't you, when you were um, I don't know, was 18, 19, something like that.
9:14
SPEAKER_02: And then you you tried a few different things and you decided you were going to go on a cooking course, yeah, did your cooking course, and then you you came back to London and started this catering company, and that's where it all started for you, wasn't it?
9:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I started I went to the Cordon Bleu in London, and I um and I lived in a a little bedsit in Earl's Court, and it was the first place that I'd had that was ever my own, you know, just just this one room, and I was so proud of it.
9:43
SPEAKER_01: Mind you, it was up four flights of stairs, which was just as well because my landlady had no sense of smell, so she had no idea that I was running a little one-woman catering business in that little bed city.
9:59
SPEAKER_01: It had a it had a cooker in the corner.
10:03
SPEAKER_01: And um, had she ventured upstairs, she'd have probably found me making smoked salmon sandwiches on the dressing table, and the bed would be covered with um, you know, a sheet and then trays of food that I was busy selling.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: And the and the communal bath in the th on the third floor would have might have lobsters swimming around in it, or it would have lettuces or potatoes being washed or something.
10:31
SPEAKER_01: Um but she never came upstairs, so I was lucky.
10:34
SPEAKER_01: And I started my business from there because I I was I started when I was still at the Cordembleau, I would work for other caterers and do go do a day, you know, just to cook for hire, doing odd jobs.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: And then I began to get customers who would ask me to do their dinner parties.
10:52
SPEAKER_02: So you I used to go all over London with a basket of, you know, ingredients in one hand and a basket of tools and so for anyone who's been watching Riders, you were the taggy O'Hara of your day then going around London and cooking, cooking for people's dinner parties.
11:09
SPEAKER_01: Exactly, I was cook people's dinner parties.
11:11
SPEAKER_01: And um they were not all wonderful.
11:14
SPEAKER_01: There was one woman who um mostly people would recommend me to other people, so that's I.
11:21
SPEAKER_01: You never the great thing about a little cooking business, you don't have to advertise or market or anything, because as long as you do a good job, they'll tell their friends and you get more jobs.
11:31
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, this woman in Holland Park, she was a tremendous snob and very difficult.
11:38
SPEAKER_01: But uh, you know, I I did dinner parties for her most most months, perhaps twice a month.
11:44
SPEAKER_01: And so I couldn't complain about the fact that she was pretty awful.
11:48
SPEAKER_01: Um but one day she um I uh there was a hatch between the kitchen and the dining room, and I could hear everything that they said in through this hatch.
12:02
SPEAKER_01: And one day I heard one of her guests, a man, saying, um, this is so delicious, you must give me the name and number of your cook because I'm looking for a cook for my director's dining rooms.
12:15
SPEAKER_01: Um and I thought, oh, fantastic.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: And then she said, Oh no, no, she said, that woman in the kitchen, that girl in the kitchen, she's not the cook.
12:24
SPEAKER_01: She said, I do all the cooking.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: She said, and she said, I wouldn't dream of hiring a cook.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: Um she's just there to do the washing up.
12:32
SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to open this catch, you see, put my head out and put her right.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: But I then remembered that I had been the I'd been the one who hung up all the coats.
12:44
SPEAKER_01: I'd hung up all the guests' coats in the in the hall on hooks.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: And so I went and got my newly printed cards.
12:54
SPEAKER_01: You know, it said Leith's good food, or whatever I called myself at the time, um, and I wrote on them, your dinner was cooked by, and I put them in every single pocket I could find.
13:09
SPEAKER_01: And you know, it worked because that chap rang me the next day and he gave me the job of doing this director's dining room.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: And he said, you know, I I thought your food was absolutely delicious.
13:22
SPEAKER_01: You you know really are a good cook.
13:24
SPEAKER_01: He said, but I was much more impressed with your marketing skills.
13:29
SPEAKER_01: And actually, I think, you know, if you have a business, you're gonna have to market it yourself.
13:34
SPEAKER_02: You can't rely on You're not afraid of taking risks, are you?
13:39
SPEAKER_02: You're not afraid of kind of putting yourself out there, doing something different, and being that kind of entrepreneurial.
13:46
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's fun.
13:47
SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you if you say yes to things, yes, you might fall on your face and you might make an idiot of yourself.
13:53
SPEAKER_01: But the chances are you'll have a good time and and you enjoy it and you'll learn something.
13:59
SPEAKER_01: I do think, I mean, I wouldn't ever say that this book of mine is a is a how-to manual, because it's not.
14:05
SPEAKER_01: It's just a sort of romp through my life and my thoughts on various things.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I think it's so much not a manual.
14:13
SPEAKER_01: I must quickly warn you that if you're looking for the answer to It's not motivational notes.
14:19
SPEAKER_02: It's not done.
14:19
SPEAKER_01: It's done.
14:20
SPEAKER_01: Well, I think it's quite, it might be quite, I hope it's quite motivational or inspiring in this in a general sense, but but it for example, you know, one of the things I talk about, I it I it's mostly chapters that I think, what do I think about exercise, what do I think about medication, what do I think about um you know, plastic surgery, anything that old people think of.
14:43
SPEAKER_01: Um and their lots, and sex and love and all that.
14:48
SPEAKER_01: There is actually a chapter on sex, isn't there?
14:50
SPEAKER_01: Yes, there is.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: Dead right there is.
14:52
SPEAKER_01: You can't live without sex.
14:54
SPEAKER_01: Or at least love.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: Love, yeah.
14:57
SPEAKER_01: Lust and love.
14:58
SPEAKER_01: Um but um anyway, the one on ch the the the one on exercise, I hope you'll be relieved to hear, simply says um exercise.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: Don't do it.
15:11
SPEAKER_01: It is so boring and it takes up so much time.
15:17
SPEAKER_02: Although you found this ski sitting, sitting skiing, didn't you?
15:21
SPEAKER_02: I did that.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: No, that's the best exercise in the world because it's not exercise.
15:25
SPEAKER_01: You know, I I took all my um well, my husband and I took all our mutual grandchildren on a skiing holiday one Christmas, and we had the most fantastic time.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: But I can't ski.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: I've I've twice thrice tried to learn to ski and I've failed each time.
15:45
SPEAKER_01: So I wasn't skiing.
15:46
SPEAKER_01: And anyhow, I'm too old, so I thought I won't ski.
15:49
SPEAKER_01: But I got really jealous because I could see these grandchildren zipping down the and I thought, oh, you know, I really should have tried harder and learned ski.
15:59
SPEAKER_01: And then somebody said, My children bought me um two hours of sit skiing.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: And sit skiing is you basically you sit in a kind of pram or a wheelbarrow, you know, you sit or an armchair.
16:14
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you sit like this, and only the chair has got skis under it, and there's handles behind, and you and a really good skier holds the handles, and down you go.
16:25
SPEAKER_01: And you go rather faster than everybody else, because you weigh a lot.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: And so you're pulling him down the slaves.
16:32
SPEAKER_01: And my children were skiing after us, and they could hardly keep keep up, and we had such fun because it's tremendously exhilarating, but it's not scary because you're not in ch charge.
16:45
SPEAKER_01: You're not thinking, oh God, I I've got to do something, I'm going to crash.
16:49
SPEAKER_01: You think, well, no, there's nothing to do with me.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: And there's something positively liberating about knowing that all he has to do is that.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: And you're a goner.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why that's it.
17:03
SPEAKER_01: It is liberating.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: You think you're just you're handing your resistance over to somebody else.
17:09
SPEAKER_01: Lovely.
17:10
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I like that.
17:11
SPEAKER_02: In the book, because obviously the book is called uh Being Old.
17:14
SPEAKER_02: Being old.
17:15
SPEAKER_02: It's not as I say, it's not your first book.
17:16
SPEAKER_02: You have done an autobiography, we've done lots of cookbooks, you've done lots of novels.
17:20
SPEAKER_02: But this one on being old.
17:22
SPEAKER_02: I I get the sense from reading it that you're actually really enjoying the fact that you're in your 80s.
17:28
SPEAKER_01: I absolutely love it.
17:29
SPEAKER_01: I think old age, I mean, of course there are some people for whom old age is miserable, they're ill or they're um lonely, or I mean, of course there are lots of unhappy old people.
17:39
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying I'm not denying that.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: But I think for a lot of us it is the best time of your life because you're tremendously free.
17:47
SPEAKER_01: You you really don't give a toss what people think anymore.
17:51
SPEAKER_01: So you you know, you're free to do what you like.
17:54
SPEAKER_01: And um, and this my generation particularly have more money than than our parents did when they were old.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: Because and they have uh, you know, it's just you know, I I think you have you for some people their grandchildren become their whole life.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: And if that's what they want, that's lovely.
18:18
SPEAKER_01: I'm a terrible grandmother.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm I'm really hopeless.
18:22
SPEAKER_01: I mean I adore my grandchildren, and I think they like me because occasionally I come whooping in and we have lovely treats.
18:29
SPEAKER_01: But I don't I'm like one of my grand I'm taking one of my grandchildren, who's very keen on tennis, to Wimbledon next week.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: So I'll do that sort of thing.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: So they think that I'm uh like Father Christmas, but I don't turn up very often.
18:44
SPEAKER_01: And and anyway, they live in different towns to me, so it's not that but I think for some some grandmothers particularly become complete slaves, and they are necessary as the people you know, they take their ch the children to school and they take them to the park and they take them to the shops and they just do all the work.
19:04
SPEAKER_01: How many of you look after your grandchildren?
19:10
SPEAKER_01: A few.
19:11
SPEAKER_01: Two or three.
19:12
SPEAKER_01: Well, there's more arms coming up now.
19:16
SPEAKER_01: I I I I I think you have uh at least most of you don't.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: I think it's uh it's a wonderful thing if that's what you really, really want to do.
19:26
SPEAKER_01: But it does take over your life and it can be.
19:30
SPEAKER_02: And you even I would say in the book, even on things that maybe are not so good about getting old, you still put a positive spin on it.
19:38
SPEAKER_02: There's one bit where you say, for example, that you like being in hospital.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: Well well Well, I I uh yes, if you i as long as they give you enough drugs so you feel fine.
19:49
SPEAKER_01: It's lovely.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: I'm a great believer in not not not not having any pain.
19:55
SPEAKER_01: Um I think I pop paracetamol like s Smarties, you know.
20:00
SPEAKER_01: In fact, much more than I pop smarties.
20:03
SPEAKER_01: Because lots of things hurt.
20:05
SPEAKER_01: But they they don't have to hurt.
20:07
SPEAKER_01: You just take a pill and pain goes away.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: So so I do that.
20:12
SPEAKER_01: And um yes, I've I've rather enjoyed my hospital stays.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: You had some you've you l read lots of books, people bring you cups of tea, you can then go go to sleep.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: You can have Do Not Disturb on the Door, it's lovely.
20:27
SPEAKER_01: And you had some good hospital stories in the book.
20:30
SPEAKER_01: Uh w which one are you you thinking of?
20:32
SPEAKER_02: There was oh I'm just trying to think.
20:34
SPEAKER_02: There was one where you were in New York and you got hospital from New York.
20:38
SPEAKER_01: Yes, no, no, I I I I um I ended up in I was in a car crash in New York, and I ended up in a hospital right down um in the Bowery end of New York, um very poor, poor district, and into this huge national hospital.
20:55
SPEAKER_01: And as I arrived, um I was j I had been going off on a holiday, and so I had my suitcase for holidays, and all in fact I had all my possessions that I had in in America with me.
21:09
SPEAKER_01: My handbag, my coat, and my suitcase.
21:12
SPEAKER_01: And when I was in a on a gurney, uh trolley outside the in the corridor waiting to be admitted, um somebody came up to me and said, Is that your suitcase?
21:23
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Yes.
21:25
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Well, it won't be yours very long, it'll be stolen before you've turned round.
21:30
SPEAKER_01: Um and I thought he was talking nonsense, but anyway, I did watch it carefully.
21:36
SPEAKER_01: But do you know when I left that hospital a week later, uh they'd stolen my uh coat.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: That suitcase had gone, the coat had gone, and um and my shoes had gone, which was rather difficult.
21:52
SPEAKER_01: And in in the end, I left the hospital in hospital issue.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: They're so used to everything being stolen that they issue.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: The patients who were leaving with some I had some far too small puffy clothes.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: It was in the middle of winter, it was freezing cold.
22:07
SPEAKER_01: Um, some very strange clothes.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: And uh a very kind, rich friend of mine had felt so sorry for me that he checked me into the Mark Hotel, which is probably the Poshest Hotel in New York.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: So I arrived in the in in the mark in borrowed puffy things that didn't fit and slippers.
22:30
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, it was fine.
22:31
SPEAKER_01: They let me in.
22:32
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's a there's another story when you're talking about health care in the book because obviously, you know, as you get older we have to deal with these.
22:40
SPEAKER_02: And you were saying one of the things you find astonishing is that we don't get to choose surgeons.
22:44
SPEAKER_02: And you tell a story of your friends who decided did lots of research on choosing the surgeon.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: Yes, well, no, my my husband did a had a very bad knee operation, which didn't work.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: And then he looked up the surgeon and found he was the bottom ranking surgeon.
23:03
SPEAKER_01: If you go on the NHS, there's a w uh on the website you can check the surgeon that you're you're thinking of having an operation done with, and find out how many operations of your kind has he done before, or she, it's usually a he.
23:20
SPEAKER_01: How many has he done before, and how suc what's his success rate?
23:25
SPEAKER_01: And uh then my husband had to have another operation, and this time he looked on the thing and chose the best one, who was an absolutely amazing surgeon and it was fine, and he had done five thousand of these operations, and his you know, s success rate was 96% or something.
23:44
SPEAKER_01: So I mean why do we just trust somebody uh who to cut up our body without taking a reference?
23:53
SPEAKER_01: You know, if you had a cleaner coming into your house, you'd want to know where something about them, wouldn't you?
24:00
SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't let a you know, you you you you'd check, you'd check on almost ever anybody you employ, but when you go to a doctor, you just trust the doctor.
24:12
SPEAKER_01: You'd let them do it.
24:13
SPEAKER_01: Not good.
24:15
SPEAKER_02: Um talking of surgery, let's just stay on this for a little for a little bit.
24:19
SPEAKER_02: Really?
24:19
SPEAKER_01: Because you you you do talk about cosmetic surgery and and about Well, I think, you know, people are very ha have they either um think it's absolutely wonderful and it'll fix everything, or they are absolutely horrified by it and thinking that's terrible, you know, it's almost sinful to to have cosmetic surgery.
24:39
SPEAKER_01: And I think it depends, you know, I was rather um poe-faced and when my mother was 70, she decided to have a boob job.
24:49
SPEAKER_01: And I thought this was ridiculous.
24:51
SPEAKER_01: I thought I mean I I at the time I must have been 40 or something.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: And I thought, really, mum, you know, I said, you why are you having a boob job?
25:01
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it doesn't matter that, you know, about your boobs.
25:04
SPEAKER_01: Nobody's going to see them anyway, you know.
25:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean, she'd been a widow for many, many years and had no intention, you know.
25:12
SPEAKER_01: So she said, she said, it's it's nothing to do with uh other people.
25:17
SPEAKER_01: She said, I have hated my tits all my life.
25:20
SPEAKER_01: They're far too big, and I want to have and I'm sick of carrying them around.
25:25
SPEAKER_01: And then she did this, she pulled her strap over, so you see that w that groove in my shoulder.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: She said, that's from my bra, that's from carrying these things around for all the all my life, and I've had enough of it.
25:39
SPEAKER_01: And I'm and and I so I thought that sounds fair enough.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: So anyhow, she had she had the operation.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: She at the time was tremendously overweight.
25:48
SPEAKER_01: She had become almost sedentary because she she had lost her, she had but she had been a great actress before, and she was South African's South Africa's sort of most famous she was she was the email.
26:02
SPEAKER_02: Judy Dench or the Maggie Smith.
26:04
SPEAKER_02: She was the Judah.
26:04
SPEAKER_01: Judy Dench of South Africa.
26:07
SPEAKER_01: Um, but she hadn't had a job for years, because mainly I think because she wasn't very well, because she was very um fat.
26:14
SPEAKER_01: And so anyway, she handled a boob job, which wasn't great, I must say, you know, one of them ended up here and one down here.
26:22
SPEAKER_01: But she didn't care about that.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: The point was they were much less of them, which is what she wanted.
26:28
SPEAKER_01: And because she was so pleased at getting rid of them, she then, or some of them, she then started to lose weight, and she became really very much happier.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: And when she was seven, just over seventy-one, I think, she got the job of her life, which was playing in in a in a play where she played the lead, a huge play, she was never off the stage, and it was fantastic.
26:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it just changed her life.
26:55
SPEAKER_01: So I I'm not saying cosmetic surgery is always bad.
26:59
SPEAKER_01: I had, when I was fifty, I I had really bad bags under my eyes, you know, horrific bags.
27:08
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so when I was in South Africa once, I quietly went off and had my bags removed, and and I felt fantastic for it, and I uh and I think it was lovely.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: And I didn't tell anybody, but my sister-in-law, who's as sharp as anything, she noticed to me.
27:27
SPEAKER_01: So then I had to confess.
27:29
SPEAKER_02: But um But you don't have a big beauty, you know you look fantastic, I have to say, you look wonderful.
27:35
SPEAKER_02: But in the book, you talk about the fact you don't, you know, you don't have a massive beauty regime.
27:39
SPEAKER_02: You take a bit of vitamin D and you rely on Nivea.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: Well uh well if if I'm like if I'm like I mean mostly my whole m so-called beauty regime is that I wash my face with soap and water and I put moisturizer on it.
27:54
SPEAKER_01: And the moisturizer is usually those little bottles I steal out of hotels.
28:00
SPEAKER_01: But if I run out of that, if I'm really desperate, I have to go and buy a bottle of moisturizer, I'll get Nivea.
28:07
SPEAKER_01: And I keep telling Nivea that they ought to hire me.
28:10
SPEAKER_02: They absolutely should hire you.
28:11
SPEAKER_01: I want to be the ambassador for Nibia and be paid lots of money to advertise them because I mean the reason I buy it is because it's cheap.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: I mean, really, you know, I meant once um heard Anita Roddick, do you remember the woman who started Body Shop?
28:28
SPEAKER_01: She said that all those moisturizers, you know, they can cost£300 or£400 for a small pot of something that's supposed to be magic anti-wrinkle stuff.
28:40
SPEAKER_01: Um she said it's not essentially the moisturizer is fat and it it's has no it's no difference.
28:50
SPEAKER_01: We could do what our ancestors did, which was sp smear our faces with mutton fat or goat fat.
28:58
SPEAKER_01: And it would work it would it would smell a bit different, but it would be just as effective.
29:05
SPEAKER_01: So I I I am rather um I think we're we're we're trapped by clever advertising and we get lured into spending money on stuff you absolutely don't have to.
29:19
SPEAKER_02: And that comes through in the book on the number of different subjects you say you hate it when you feel like we're pulled into things that are just about spending money on stuff that we we don't need and we're we're kind of pushed into stuff and you get you do there's points in the book where you get quite frustrated with big companies and and selling us things.
29:38
SPEAKER_01: Well, because if you think of those if you look th think of a 300 pound pot of of something, the contents will probably cost at the most five pounds, probably less.
29:52
SPEAKER_01: But it's the packaging and the advertising and the profit.
29:57
SPEAKER_01: That's where the money's going.
29:58
SPEAKER_01: It's not going into anyway, so I get a bit hotter under the content.
30:02
SPEAKER_01: No, you do, and um water companies selling.
30:05
SPEAKER_01: You know, I it drives me mad that k kids are now so brand obsessed that they have to have Nike trainers.
30:14
SPEAKER_01: There are perfectly good trainers for a tenth of the price.
30:20
SPEAKER_01: And I think you could, you know, if I if I'm uh my next business is I'm going to f fake, have little fake um, you know, the Nike symbol that you stick on your plain white trays trainers from Tesco.
30:37
SPEAKER_01: Who knows?
30:38
SPEAKER_02: This is off the subject, but um I was recently travelling in Asia and I was trying to buy some knockoff Adidas or you know, and uh I went to one shop and I think I was looking, I think they were knockoff converse or something, knockoff adidas, and I think they wanted uh 60 quid for them, like the equivalent in bar.
30:55
SPEAKER_02: And I went, um, 60 quid for this, you know, the knockoff.
30:58
SPEAKER_02: And he went, ah yes, but these are genuine knockoffs.
31:02
SPEAKER_01: And I I I once uh went to a shop in um in Huaheen in in Thailand, which was called Top Fake.
31:14
SPEAKER_02: There you go, that's the way to do it.
31:16
SPEAKER_02: That is the way to do it, isn't it?
31:18
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
31:19
SPEAKER_02: Um I mean you can as you were saying, you know, each of the chapters in the uh in the book take you take a di a different subject and you you tell stories from your life.
31:27
SPEAKER_01: And then I rant I rant away about it.
31:29
SPEAKER_02: You do, you tell us what you think politically about stuff, and and some of those are more challenging than others.
31:35
SPEAKER_02: So you know, there's bits about, you know, as you were saying, about cosmetic surgery or or about tattoos or about you know um talking about your previous life or what hospitals or exercise.
31:46
SPEAKER_02: Um but you you don't shy away from death in the book, do you?
31:51
SPEAKER_01: Well, no, I don't think we should shy away from death.
31:53
SPEAKER_01: I mean we're gonna it's gonna come to us all.
31:55
SPEAKER_01: That's you know, death and taxes, only sense uh the only sense absolute certainties.
32:01
SPEAKER_01: Um and I think I I mean I'm just a great believer that you ought to have control of your life if you want to, and therefore control of your death.
32:12
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying that um euthanasia is for everybody.
32:18
SPEAKER_01: And not, you know, I I'm not I'm not, it's not I'm not talking like some awful Nazi regime that wants to get rid of, you know, everybody who's unsuitable.
32:29
SPEAKER_01: Um I just think if you are in pain and you're dying anyway, why can't we have what we would grant to a dog or horse or cat?
32:42
SPEAKER_01: Um why why why do we why are we not allowed to do that?
32:47
SPEAKER_01: Why are we not allowed to get assistance?
32:49
SPEAKER_01: It's perfectly legal to commit suicide, but it's not legal to make sure you do it safely.
32:56
SPEAKER_01: Like with a you know, with a doctor at hand or or with help.
33:02
SPEAKER_01: I mean it's crazy to s to say yes you can commit suicide, but no, you can't get any help to do it.
33:10
SPEAKER_02: That was quite informed by your brother David.
33:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my brother had a my elder brother had an absolutely horrible death in in an NHS hospital.
33:19
SPEAKER_01: With the with the doctors, um I I went to see his consultant and I said, you know, can't you give him more morphine so that he's uh you know just falls asleep and then which is what they used to do before Shipman came and and do you remember Harold Shipman murdered a whole lot of old ladies and he was a doctor.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: And since then doctors have been absolutely terrified of being accused of murder.
33:49
SPEAKER_01: So they uh they won't uh slip you a bit of extra morphine when you're really at the end.
33:56
SPEAKER_01: You know, the th what used to happen is the doctor would say to the relatives, they'd never say openly, um, do you want me to kill your brother?
34:07
SPEAKER_01: But they would say something like I wonder, do you think he's had enough?
34:12
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what do you think?
34:14
SPEAKER_01: And then it would give the relatives a chance to say, you know, he's absolutely longing to die.
34:21
SPEAKER_01: You know.
34:22
SPEAKER_01: And then miraculously within a few days he would fall asleep and go into a coma and then die.
34:30
SPEAKER_01: And it was just uh understood, but nobody talked about it.
34:35
SPEAKER_01: However, since Shipman came along, um that's all changed and it it's very, very difficult now.
34:41
SPEAKER_01: Of course it still does happen occasionally in host in hostels, particularly where they they can check.
34:47
SPEAKER_01: The the danger is that in a in a in a big hospital that that what's hap what's happening is that the a a doctor who would who would really like to uh help somebody out of their misery doesn't dare do it because they're frightened that there'll be a nurse who belongs to the pro-life um pressure group, who who who really passionately believe that it's wrong.
35:13
SPEAKER_01: That nurse will report him and then he will be suspended for six months.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: And even if he knows that he can say perfectly l legally, I I the reason I gave that chap a bit of extra morphine is I was trying to still the pain.
35:31
SPEAKER_01: I was not trying to kill him, I was trying to still pain.
35:34
SPEAKER_01: And that's fine, because you you're allowed to he's allowed to do as much give as much as he likes.
35:40
SPEAKER_01: But um they're too frightened to do that now.
35:43
SPEAKER_02: So you were very active part of campaigning for an assisted dying.
35:48
SPEAKER_01: For an assisted dying, and and it j it was just um scuppered in the House of Lords, you might know about the But of course.
36:01
SPEAKER_02: He was very active against this.
36:03
SPEAKER_02: What was that line?
36:05
SPEAKER_01: My son, yeah, my son is is it's it's quite funny actually.
36:08
SPEAKER_01: My son is um he's he has very good arguments and he he he he do he just thinks that we shouldn't ever kill people.
36:23
SPEAKER_02: And uh what's that like as a mother and son relationship that you've been up to in this campaign?
36:29
SPEAKER_02: And he was he was effectively leading the MPs against the campaign.
36:34
SPEAKER_01: I lead one side, he leads the other.
36:36
SPEAKER_01: But it's quite uh you know, we went to we went all over America and Canada looking at places where they have a sister dying and where it's legal.
36:46
SPEAKER_01: And um and we went together and we made a documentary for Channel 4 about it.
36:52
SPEAKER_01: And it was very evenly balanced, you know, the channel made sure that he had the same amount of time as I did to argue our case.
37:00
SPEAKER_01: And we both enjoyed it a lot, and we both came back absolutely convinced that we had seen the evidence that supported our side.
37:10
SPEAKER_01: So anyhow, you know what?
37:12
SPEAKER_01: I I always you asked me before we started, is there anything you don't want to talk about?
37:17
SPEAKER_01: And I forgot to say assisted dying.
37:20
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
37:22
SPEAKER_01: I tell you why.
37:22
SPEAKER_01: I tell you why I wanted not to talk about it, because I talk about it all the time.
37:26
SPEAKER_01: I spend a lot of time um trying to um persuade the world that that assisted dying is a good thing.
37:32
SPEAKER_01: But I've noticed that the the the enjoyment levels everybody gets hope that you have to.
37:41
SPEAKER_02: Right.
37:41
SPEAKER_02: Well, tell you what, I'm just looking at my notes then.
37:43
SPEAKER_02: So let's go back to captans in the 70s.
37:46
SPEAKER_02: Shall we go back to clothes?
37:48
SPEAKER_02: Do you want to go back to clothes?
37:49
SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah, okay, let's let's go back to clothes.
37:51
SPEAKER_02: Because one of the other things I do really like about your book is you talk about the fact that kind of designer gear and um luxury and that sort of thing is wasted on you, don't you?
38:01
SPEAKER_02: You kind of you're you're not you're not for all of that, are you?
38:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well I mean you know if somebody wishes to give me a simiyaki dress, I'm not gonna say no.
38:09
SPEAKER_01: But I would never buy one.
38:10
SPEAKER_01: I'm just too mean.
38:13
SPEAKER_01: Um I mean I do think the designer uh top designers have a great um, you know, they influence everybody's design, everybody else's design, and so I'm I'm more in the rip-off.
38:26
SPEAKER_01: Um but I think You're in the genuine nothing.
38:28
SPEAKER_01: But I don't want I don't want their name on it.
38:31
SPEAKER_01: Um I just like but I think I'm really, really lucky because I married my second husband, uh, who I call my current husband.
38:41
SPEAKER_01: He's sitting in the back there.
38:44
SPEAKER_01: My current husband um is uh was a fashion designer and a m manufacturer for many years.
38:52
SPEAKER_01: So he's really good at colour and he's really good at uh at fashion.
38:57
SPEAKER_01: And he buys all my clothes.
39:00
SPEAKER_01: That is so good, isn't it?
39:01
SPEAKER_01: It's so fantastic.
39:02
SPEAKER_01: It's absolutely wonderful.
39:03
SPEAKER_01: I don't I just um I hate shopping.
39:07
SPEAKER_01: I love clothes and I I and I and I enjoy putting together an outfit or whatever, just sort of helping myself to um all this lovely stuff.
39:18
SPEAKER_01: But he buys everything, and he buys a lot of it very cheaply off the internet.
39:24
SPEAKER_01: He says, I have a wall of necklaces.
39:27
SPEAKER_01: It's actually it's disgraceful.
39:29
SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's as big as that screen up there, and it's full of little hooks, and it's just got necklaces or actually them they're metal trees with little spikes instead of leaves all over them.
39:42
SPEAKER_01: And and there must be 700 necklaces hanging on, because I can't stop, and nor can he, and we buy um he says that the the the limit is ten dollars, but I he does occasionally spend more than ten dollars.
39:56
SPEAKER_01: But they're all cheap.
39:58
SPEAKER_01: And these they hang up on on the on the wall, and I say to myself, this is not an addiction.
40:04
SPEAKER_01: It's definitely it's not an addiction.
40:07
SPEAKER_01: It's an art installation, and I have to keep it refreshed, you see.
40:13
SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
40:14
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
40:16
SPEAKER_01: It is uh it's I mean, a lot of women um don't like shopping, but but but do like do like to look good, you know.
40:26
SPEAKER_01: So and they don't have a John who goes shopping for them.
40:30
SPEAKER_02: I know, we all need a John who goes shopping for them.
40:33
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
40:34
SPEAKER_02: Well, shall we go to some questions, please?
40:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, just having a look here.
40:38
SPEAKER_02: So we do have a microphone, don't we?
40:41
SPEAKER_02: Let me see if I can see.
40:42
SPEAKER_02: Oh, there we go, it's sort of at the back.
40:44
SPEAKER_02: So who would like to kick us off with some questions?
40:48
SPEAKER_02: Somebody must want to ask us.
40:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, here we go.
40:51
SPEAKER_02: Down the front here, if that's all right in the orange top.
40:55
SPEAKER_02: And now I'll just wait for the mic if that's all right, and everyone can hear you.
41:30
SPEAKER_01: Um slightly, just in order for to ease f to make it easier for me to find something.
41:36
SPEAKER_01: So I do yeah, it's uh the ready the red end, red and orange or this end, and then it goes to pink, and uh but it's it's I don't I'm not very exact about it.
41:45
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I just muddle them up.
41:49
SPEAKER_01: You know, one thing I'd love to uh which we haven't talked to and I don't know if we have time to, but I I just think it's uh please do.
41:57
SPEAKER_01: It'll be fun.
41:58
SPEAKER_01: Um when I first got into television, I was on in a show in um uh Time Tees were the with the producers.
42:09
SPEAKER_01: They know they no longer exist.
42:11
SPEAKER_01: And they it was an afternoon show, and I was pr I was the presenter, and I'd never been on television before, but in those days everybody hadn't been on television before because there was no television before.
42:23
SPEAKER_01: I mean we're talking about the early 70s, and it was the beginning of colour television, and um so I had to and I had a horrible, horrible um director who was like he had been a schoolmaster, and he was absolutely um rigid about he didn't like anything to be um improvised or natural.
42:48
SPEAKER_01: You had to have everything on a script, and so if you were interviewing me, your questions would be up above my head and and my answers would be up above.
42:55
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was just ridiculous.
42:57
SPEAKER_01: Written on the board.
42:57
SPEAKER_01: Yes, written on the board.
42:59
SPEAKER_01: And so I the only part of the the show I enjoyed because was was that I had various people who came to teach me things.
43:10
SPEAKER_01: And for example, I Vidal Sassoon came and taught me about how you use a blow dryer, which was a new invention at the time.
43:17
SPEAKER_01: Mary Berry came with a little freezer and showed me how you you could freeze food because freezers were new at the time.
43:24
SPEAKER_01: Nobody'd nobody had freezers.
43:26
SPEAKER_01: So people came and taught and somebody came and do my makeup and and you know, very various things.
43:32
SPEAKER_01: And then one day a woman came who was sh I don't know if any of you would have heard of her because she's but she was called Lottie Burke, and she was a very famous fitness trainer.
43:45
SPEAKER_01: What today we would and she was very hot on the whole idea of uh the new idea that your that your inner core was what mattered, you know, the muscles inside it didn't matter about this so much, but w what was inside what she called, she used to just call it a a you know, vaginal muscles or ad abdominal muscles.
44:09
SPEAKER_01: Um and she'd bang on about that.
44:11
SPEAKER_01: Anyhow, so she came and she c wanted to um give a demonstration of how how you should stay fit, you see.
44:20
SPEAKER_01: So she had me lying on my on the floor, studio floor on my back, while she she was a she had been a ballet dancer.
44:29
SPEAKER_01: And she was about 70, but she was tiny and very, very light.
44:34
SPEAKER_01: And she was prancing round me like a sort of demented teenager.
44:39
SPEAKER_01: She was German and she I can't do a German accent, but I'll try.
44:43
SPEAKER_01: She was shouting at me and what she was saying was squeeze, squeeze, dieta, dieta, squeeze, squeeze, she'd say she'd say, make like fake like f squeeze, squeeze.
44:58
SPEAKER_01: And she'd charge around absolutely bellowing at me and and telling me to make like f she was so funny.
45:08
SPEAKER_01: And I I bet that director that must have had absolute hysterics up in the gallery.
45:15
SPEAKER_01: And I never ever saw that piece of film and I would I would I'd give my IT to make but they didn't keep film in those days you know they used to I don't take it or they didn't even so I I you know I've never I've never seen it the question is ever since then do you squeeze squeeze?
45:36
SPEAKER_02: No I don't I didn't didn't do anything fantastic.
45:43
SPEAKER_02: Squeeze me.
45:44
SPEAKER_02: Let's take another question.
45:46
SPEAKER_02: Well well we're waiting for another question.
45:48
SPEAKER_02: I mean you know we we haven't mentioned Bake Off um obviously but you were 16 when you started that weren't you?
45:56
SPEAKER_01: Uh older I think.
45:58
SPEAKER_01: Were you yeah yeah no I was 70 I was 75.
46:05
SPEAKER_01: 75 wow I was 75 um yeah no I was lucky to get the job wasn't there but that is amazing you know because uh lots of people you know this book is being old starting something new just that's one of the other things that's so great about old age now is that since there was no retirement age anymore you don't have to retire if you don't want to um that used to be an absolute cutoff wasn't it you know suddenly suddenly you're old at sixty two and you've got to retire.
46:34
SPEAKER_00: Sixty two for goodness sakes sixty two is a mere slip of a thing sixty two you've still got loads loads to do with loads in you exactly anybody else like to ask a question yeah this put the camera down I do love gardening.
47:11
SPEAKER_01: Um I'm not much good at I mean I can't if if I kneel down to weed something I can't get up again.
47:18
SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm not so good at the physical stuff anymore.
47:22
SPEAKER_01: Um but I do absolutely love it and my husband is a very active gardener so uh we we have a lovely garden and we we m moved from our I had a really big house in the Cotswolds and you know Cotswold uh prices went rocketing up recently and I was just so lucky because my first husband and I had bought that house um you know 50 for nearly nearly 50 years ago, 48 years ago and so it had you know we sold it for a lot a lot of money.
47:58
SPEAKER_01: So I could so I kept it was a farm and a house but the f there was also a little farm cottage where the farmer lived and so we kept five fields round the little farmer's cottage knocked down the farmer's cottage and built an absolutely modern house and I can tell you that the joys of a modern house are so great apart from the fact that um it it does look very amazing.
48:22
SPEAKER_01: Everything works but everything works and you don't have to worry about the roof leaking and the doors shutting and it's all it's a j it's a joy.
48:31
SPEAKER_01: And the garden has so the garden's only five years old now and it's just beginning to look like proper gardens.
48:39
SPEAKER_01: And is it as colourful as you it is it's it's nice and vulgar.
48:44
SPEAKER_01: Is it so you have you um have you lots of vulgar colour do you know Jillie Cooper once said to me because she lives lived in the Cotswolds too she said you know when which is when I moved into our original house also in the Cotswolds up up the road she said the thing about Cotswolds is it's very gentle colours.
49:06
SPEAKER_01: You have to have mauve and white and pink just gentle colours and I took absolutely no notice of that and just have I mean it's the South African in me I'm sure you know if you think of South African flowers they're like canners you know red and orange and so I have nice vulgar colours.
49:28
SPEAKER_02: There's a line in the book which has really made me thought Prue where you say because you're South African that for you you think of nature as being red because most of us here would think of nature as being green.
49:41
SPEAKER_01: Green yeah brown and red yeah brown and red yeah because the felt is brown and anyway I um I I do but but but gardening is just a garden or just a wood.
49:56
SPEAKER_01: I went to uh to um Ireland the other day um last year um to I was a guest judge on a television show where the Irish were choosing their three best gardens in Belfast or something.
50:12
SPEAKER_01: So we I was taken around it was quite a joke me being a judge because I don't know enough about gardening to be a judge I just love it.
50:19
SPEAKER_01: But there was Carol Klein uh Karen Klein and Dermot whatever his name is and they're they are top top gardeners so they know what they're doing.
50:30
SPEAKER_01: So I just trailed round after them saying yes yes I agree and all that but when we got we got to one garden which was just lovely because it had an old fashioned um herbaceous border with which is like a sort of cottage garden just with everything thrown in any old how the colours mixed up and it was just so exciting and when we had done our new garden um four years ago I was trying very hard to make sure that it was all very um sort of um sustainable you know that then we'd have grass mostly grass gardens and and it didn't have nearly as much colour as I like.
51:13
SPEAKER_01: So I came back so inspired by this um Irish garden that I built a whole new um herbaceous border which is amazingly satisfactory.
51:26
SPEAKER_01: It's got every one of these colours and where's things got to with the cookery schools?
51:31
SPEAKER_01: Cookie school well one of the things that I'm really proud of but I wish I could say it was my idea that my cooking school Leith School of Food and Wine has been going for 50 years now and on its 50th birthday the new owner of it because I sold it a while ago the new owner is absolutely wonderful and she decided that all the profits that the school made would go into teaching primary school children for free how to cook.
52:01
SPEAKER_01: So state schools so if any of you've got relatives working in a primary school or um you know daughters or friends all they have to do is to ring up Lee's and say they want to register for the course and and it's free and it's for all primary school kids.
52:24
SPEAKER_01: And I think it'll make a real difference because if you think if we can just teach a a generation of children to love good food and healthy food and to choose it rather than to choose junk.
52:39
SPEAKER_01: They will grow up eating the right food.
52:41
SPEAKER_01: They'll teach their children to eat the right food and we'll we could save the NHS a fortune and we could do something about the nation's health.
52:49
SPEAKER_01: You know I think it's just the most wonderful thing.
52:52
SPEAKER_01: And that's just because the the woman who owns the school is generous enough to say I'm gonna spend all the money on on that.
53:00
SPEAKER_01: That's fantastic.
53:01
SPEAKER_04: It's only it's only for state school uh you pri it's only primary state schools you know non fee non-fee paying schools we had another question down here thanks to see you on the house how did he go on we know Laur Lawrence Lowell and Powin I think Lawrence Llewellynpowin Oh Lo Lawrence Lowell yes I know we have we have we have lots of funny um you know guests come on the show and they all have to cook with me or I cook with them.
54:05
SPEAKER_01: Or I co I cook for them if they don't want to cook.
54:08
SPEAKER_01: He refused to cook he said he didn't like cooking he wasn't going to cook but he turned my whole kitchen into a gallery so he had these pictures up all over the place.
54:17
SPEAKER_01: But we we've had lots of made cook he was terrible cooking he he was the worst was he?
54:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah was there anyone else who was particularly bad?
54:26
SPEAKER_01: No because he I mean we always end up with good food because I won't let them cook if they if they I mean he didn't want to cook and he so he didn't but um but i it's fun because you know for example Lulu Lulu came and Lulu I remember from the 1970s and she used to come to my restaurant and she was absolutely lovely she she would bounce into the restaurant and she'd kiss all the waiters and she'd say hello to all the customers and she was just light the place up it was fantastic.
54:59
SPEAKER_01: And I hadn't seen her since since those years ago but I invited her to to come on the show and she did.
55:06
SPEAKER_01: And she came in and she kept exactly the same she just looked the same she bounced in she she was really friendly to all the the um crew and and she was can she cook though she can she can she she made it she made a chicken dish.
55:23
SPEAKER_01: Did she yeah um she she's good at cooking she but she was she has a a real pleasure so anyhow but the that we're talking about a program which is called Prudleith Scotsworld Kitchen and it's it's um it was on a on Saturday mornings on ITV it's now being re-shown on the food program and it'll come back and you've missed 30 episodes of it so you have to get it on catch up.
55:54
SPEAKER_01: And my husband is in it and this is what is perhaps a slight mistake because I thought because it's filmed in our house that he would get quite pissed off really if if um the whole house was taken over by cre crew and people with you know a film crew has so much junk and they were there for two weeks and I thought John will hate this.
56:17
SPEAKER_01: So I said to the crew why don't we have bring in John and John can do some stuff because he's he he he's he's not at all nervous and he and he and we'd done a gardening program once together before and so he said yes.
56:31
SPEAKER_02: And you know he has become so popular that the other day I was in the co-op with him and we were shopping and I was filling the trolley and the woman behind the till caught sight of him oh she said you're the man off the Cotswold Kitchen you're John Playthrough she said I absolutely love you she said in fact I'm in love with you and she's looking at him like this and I am there patting the pad my way not a glance my way I've I've made a mistake here I'm supposed to be the telestar you're the telestar so telestar writer novelist businesswoman non-executive director uh TV chef um you have also said you would have liked to have been an architect a travel writer a politician an actress what's next for you I don't think I manage any of those last four things but I don't know I don't know what's left I I recently walked down a catwalk which was amazing I mean the a couple of friends of ours who are designers said what about why didn't you walk for us?
57:49
SPEAKER_01: It's called walking for you will you walk for me I said what do you mean all do you walk for me I mean walk down the catwalk I said don't be silly John says I walk like a sailor you know I sort of swayed on and I can't do that thing that that models do you know they tuck their bums in and they and and they sort of look very soft.
58:07
SPEAKER_02: You obviously didn't listen to what was she called Lottie if you'd done squeezy squeezy or whatever if I did squeezy squeezy squeezy squeeze you'd be able to do it.
58:15
SPEAKER_01: Lottie Berg and you're you're supposed to glide down and they said no no no you don't need to do that just walk down like you normally walk down.
58:21
SPEAKER_01: Anyway I didn't have time for a fitting so um they had but they had my measurements and so when I arrived they had this latex tube black black latex tube and it took two men to pull it onto me and um and and then I and and then I had great clumpy shoes because I can't possibly wear high heels anyway so I had great clumpy black thing and rather got gothic makeup and it was bondage gear.
58:55
SPEAKER_01: I mean that's no question but you know I absolutely loved it I and I I pranced on the I having a great time and so I've now done four of them.
59:07
SPEAKER_02: So you've done bondage gear in your 80s I think that sort of says there's not much left to do it's been wonderful to have you have thank you so much for shuffling up to see us can everybody give a mess a round of applause