Great British Bake Off judge Prue Leith, 85, recalls nasty tumble on icy ski slopes and other dramatic stories as she quits the show after 10 years
As Prue announces she’s leaving The Great British Bake Off after almost a decade on the show to spend more time with her husband, her new book delves into what she does to stay young and it’s not exercise.
Push-ups and pilates are merely a couple of exercises that Prue Leith describes as “variations of hell.” At 85, the outspoken culinary icon declares: “I find exercise for the sake of exercise painful and unbelievably boring.
“Being tortured on a Pilates reformer machine, forcing oneself out into the rain to go running or doing push-ups on the bedroom floor are all variations of hell for me. Ditto yoga, steps, spinning and the rest.”
Residing in a home she constructed with her husband, retired fashion designer John Playfair, 77, in Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, the Great British Bake Off star’s confessions feature in her book Being Old…And Learning to Love It, set for release on February 26.
Prue – celebrated for her striking style, featuring vibrant clothing and statement spectacles – shows no signs of adopting a subdued approach to ageing.
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However, as mother to politician son Danny and filmmaker daughter Li-Da, she admits her grandchildren occasionally challenge her youthful perspective. She reveals: “You know you’re old when your three-year-old grandchild grabs your neck and says, ‘Nana, why is your neck so stringy?’ And you can’t deny the stooping back, greying hair, widening waist and, and, and. But I think old age is largely in the mind.”
As a judge keeping bakers on edge during her time on Channel 4’s The Great British Bake Off, she’s delighted that perceptions around growing older have shifted. She explains: “My parents’ generation, and many of mine, imbibed the idea that once we’re past 60, all sorts of things are ‘inappropriate’ for us: dancing, sitting on a bar stool, wearing pillar-box red, smoking weed. They seem to think we should all wear beige, sit in a corner and knit.
“I think they were brainwashed. They got the wrong idea of their worth, concurring with the idea that oldies should be neither seen nor heard, that we should dress as unobtrusively as possible, that we should stop thinking about romance, love and sex, that we are too old to be of any use to anyone, and that we should devote ourselves to good causes and ungrateful grandchildren.”
Prue dismisses the ‘MEDS’ philosophy for older people, where M represents Mindset and maintaining a positive outlook; E stands for exercise, which should be daily; D denotes diet, eating moderately and avoiding alcohol; and S signifies stress, which ought to be minimised. “Needless to say, I don’t match up,” she admits.
“I’m lucky in that I positively relish a bit of stress: I like having lots of balls in the air and a full diary, and I enjoy sorting muddles and fixing things. But I seldom feel stressed.” What she refers to as “forced exercise” proves particularly challenging for Prue.
She explains: “At various times in my life, I’ve joined gyms that I never went to. I’ve hired personal trainers and soon unhired them, and made countless resolutions about exercise and diet that I’ve never stuck to. The worst kind of exercise is when it’s non-competitive, like Pilates or yoga or going to the gym.”
However, she clarifies she’s not averse to physical activity, simply favouring competitive pursuits. Prue elaborates: “I love tennis because it’s sociable and there’s a chance you’ll win. I love riding because it’s exhilarating, and you can do it in a gang.
“I used to exercise polo ponies on Ham Common in London with a dozen or so other amateur riders, and there is intense pleasure in cantering in a companiable group in the early mornings with the mist just dispersing, as you watch deer and scattering rabbits. I also used to play tennis every Tuesday morning. Weekends at home in the country offered long walks, and more tennis and riding.”
Unfortunately, advancing years have limited some of these pursuits. “As l’ve got older, I’ve reluctantly adapted,” she admits.
“I stopped riding when my daughter left home and sold her horse, and I found myself hacking about the countryside on my tod. I realised that if I was lying in a ditch with a broken back, my horse would just crop the grass and wait for me to get on again.
“He wouldn’t, like my childhood pony, Laddie, run home to fetch help. I stopped playing tennis when I kept falling over; likewise, I now fish from a boat, not standing in a rushing river; and last Christmas I went sit-skiing, not skiing. All these accommodations have been forced on me, and I’m fine with that: I don’t want to be swept away by the river Spey or to break my neck on an Alpine piste.”
After two unsuccessful attempts at learning to ski – one at 19 years old and another later in life, she recalls: “Both times a disaster.”
The second attempt took place on nursery slopes devoid of snow in Wengen, Switzerland. She recounts: “Utter fiasco. I had long skis which kept coming off, and a 17-year-old Austrian instructor, whose flowing blonde hair and graceful moves disguised the hard-faced devil she really was. She swooped down the icy slopes and I came tumbling after. She shouted a lot, I cried a lot.”
However, she has found joy in sit-skiing, which she discovered during a lavish “magical Christmas week trip to Val d’Isère in 2024 with 17 members of our ‘blended’ tribe.”
She shares: “I thought, ”sod it, let’s go the whole hog’. What better way to spend your hard-earned cash than on a family holiday? But the highlight, for me, was the sit-skiing.”
She also adores exploring the UK alongside her husband John – frequently transforming work commitments promoting her books or theatre tours featuring her stand-up performances into miniature holiday escapades. She explains: “John sweetly comes with me, and that turns a work trip into a jolly jaunt. Even if you are booked in different theatres every night, the towns are so close it’s never more than a few hours’ drive to get to the next one, leaving time to see the town.
“All four of us – me, John, the driver-cum-fixer-cum-techie and Clive Tulloch, producer, director and friend bowl along, listening to music or podcasts, or chatting and doing emails. We arrive in time for a nice lunch, then I’ll have a nap while John goes exploring, and Clive and Jim set up at the theatre. Then we’ll do the show and have a nightcap in our hotel.”
Meanwhile, Prue consistently adheres to what appears to be her secret to staying youthful, declaring: “Nothing in moderation!”.
