Dame Prue Leith says being older makes her take more risks and to be "more reckless" in life
The Great British Bake Off judge says hitting her Eighties has given her a new sense of freedom. In September she was on the catwalk in London Fashion Week in a new look. The 84-year-old said: "Because I'm so near the end, I'm a bit more reckless. Now, what's the worst thing that can happen? If I was about to try and get a job on Bake Off, I probably wouldn't walk down a catwalk in latex with goth makeup on, but now it's too late. If I want to do it, and it sounds like good fun. I just think, why not?" On her famously bright wardrobe on Channel 4, she added: "I don't ever wear anything I don't want to. My husband is a retired fashion designer, and he's very keen on colour, so I listen to him a bit.
"I have Jane Galpin, who does my wardrobe. Jane was the first person who really understood what I wanted to wear, so I've stuck with her ever since. Jane turns up here with a whole rail full of clothes, and the three of us go through it all and choose what we like. I often say, 'Oh, I'll never wear that', but John and Jane make me try it on, and often it makes the cut."
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(Image: PA))Prue married second husband John Playfair in 2016 and has two children and a growing family now she has grandchildren. Giving tips for a family Christmas, she says old Christmas pud and mince pies can be added to scoops on vanilla ice cream and then refrozen in a bowl. She explains: "When we turn it out, it looks like a Christmas pudding. Stick a bit of holly on the top, set it alight, and you've got a delicious Christmas dessert."
Prue is not big on giving big presents on December 25 as she and her husband give each other smaller gifts through the year, but she does have a bumper trip away planned this year.
She told Heat magazine: "I'm just excited for the chance to spend some quality time with the family. All 17 of us. We are talking my two children and their children, my husband's youngest child and her family, and then both the mother in laws, because we can't leave them behind, are going skiing in France. It will be incredibly hectic, but just brilliant."
In September Prue told the Mirror how she almost quit the Great British Bake Off because she wanted to spend more time with her family but bosses changed her schedule so she could carry on.
She will be missing from the next Celebrity version of Bake Off which raises money for Channel 4's Stand Up To Cancer charity. Asked if it was a hard decision to step back she revealed: "You know, it wasn't really hard because the fact of it is I was getting really tired. It meant we were filming from April to the end of August without a break and, although we got days off in each week, they were never the weekends. We were always filming at the weekend. And I was just… you know. I was in a new house and I hardly saw the garden, I hardly saw my family and I never had a summer holiday. I thought I might have to leave altogether because I didn't realise there’d be an option.
"And so, I went to the producers and said, ‘I think I'll have to quit…’ and they said: ‘Oh, don’t quit altogether. Don't quit so you can have a holiday. If you want a holiday, let’s organise it so you can have a holiday’."
* Prue's latest book; Life's Too Short To Stuff A Mushroom, is out now published by Carnival.
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