Mary Berry

Dame Mary Berry has been teaching Brits to cook for more than half a century. Aged 90, she remains a staple on our screens at Christmas.

Born in Bath in 1935, Berry was the middle child of two brothers. She struggled in school and studied Home Economics class instead of Maths.

Berry left school with no qualifications but continued to pursue her love of cooking, training at the famous Le Cordon Bleu school in France.

In 1971, she began her TV career with slots on shows like Collector’s World and Good Afternoon with Judith Chalmers, where she’d teach viewers how use newfangled items like freezers and tinfoil.

Over the next four decades, Berry would go on to write dozens of cookbooks, feature in and present her own cooking programmes, and teach thousands to cook in her Aga lessons, which she hosted in her own home.

But it was her role as a judge on Bake Off that introduced her to a new generation of viewers, and cemented her as one of the nations best-loved cooks.

Stephen Smith looks back on her decades-long career.

Contributors: Belles Berry – Mary Berry’s daughter Maragret Berry – Mary Berry’s sister in law Rosie Millard – Journalist Kirsty Wark – Journalist and presenter Candice Brown – Winner of the Great British Bake Off 2016

Production Presenter: Stephen Smith Producers: Tom Gillett, Mhairi Mackenzie and Alex Loftus Editor: Nick Holland Production Coordinator: Maria Ogundele Sound: Gareth Jones