DM1ST(^12) DAILY MIRROR SATURDAY 17.08.
To nominate for Pride of Britain 2019 visit prideofbritain.com
20 YEARS OF PRIDE OF BRITAIN
farming, while Choice! took the
proportion of British schools offering
vegetarian meals from 13% to 85%.
At the 1999 Pride of Britain
ceremony, Sir Paul said: “She is a
low-key but very effective
campaigner and someone I
believe to be very worthy.”
Twenty years on, Juliet, 55,
is still as passionate.
“When I won the Pride of
Britain, there were very few
vegans,” she says. “One
major supermarket refused
to put ‘vegan’ on their
packaging back then. That same
supermarket is now tripping over
themselves to do it.”
LESS than a year after his animal-
loving wife Linda died, Sir Paul
McCartney handed the first Pride of
Britain Linda McCartney Award for
Animal Welfare to Juliet Gellatley.
The moment was extra
poignant because Linda had
supported Juliet when she
started National Vegetarian
Week in 1992 and Sir Paul had
nominated her for the award.
Juliet’s tireless campaigning
for animal welfare has
convinced millions of Brits to
become vegetarian or vegan.
As the founder and director of
campaign group Viva!, Juliet’s project
Scream! taught pupils about factory WORTHY Sir Paul and Juliet
WE GRILL PAUL
the Aussies and have multi-international
judges there as well.
PRUE: It’s whether you’d get the
winners. If they don’t win it they’ll come
again and again until they win but when
they win it they never come back.
Anything about this series that’s
standing out so far?
PAUL: There’s a couple of bakers this
year who are very good and you wouldn’t
expect them to be good – I don’t think
they expect them to be good.
PRUE: What hasn’t changed is the sort
of homely, friendly [atmosphere]. There’s
no malice to it, we’re never wanting to
humiliate people or choosing somebody
just because we can laugh at them. You
sometimes feel with some talent shows
that somebody’s there for comic value.
Do you tone down your critiques?
PAUL: You can’t say it’s good if it’s not.
Just because the person’s nice you
cannot say “that’s a great bake” when you
know it’s not. You have to be honest. But
it has to be constructive, not destructive.
What about when they get
upset? Do you feel
you’re too mean?
PAUL: No. It’s not
personal, I’m only having a
go at scones. They are an
emotional bunch this year.
I’ve got a job to do, I can’t
go around and go, “Well
actually it’s really good, stop
crying!” I’ve hugged a
couple of bakers and
they’ve really broken down.
I went round and gave
them a hug and said
[whispers]: “It’s only a
baking show.” But I said: “No one’s filming
that are they? That was too nice.”
I have got a soft side but that’s not why
I’m here, I’m here to judge.
PRUE: He’s as tough as old boots – but
I get really upset. The ones who are really
upset will always say they’ve learnt a lot.
How can you be so steely?
PAUL: Professionally that’s my job. The
times you walk into bakeries and the
baker’s trying to the pull wool over your
eyes. You scan to see how many trays
have been done, we’re a tray short. I go:
“Where’s the other tray?” They’ve stuck
it in a prover and it’s burnt and I lose it.
So I’m striving for perfection all the
time – that’s the point of Bake Off.
Are times difficult for bakers at
the moment?
PAUL: All the bakers I know are
struggling, it’s really difficult to make
money. People don’t know what’s
BY NICOLA METHVEN TV Editor
T
he Great British Bake Off returns
this month with a fresh batch of
bakers trying out their cakes, pies
and bread creations in the tent.
Paul Hollywood, Prue Leith, Sandi
Toksvig and Noel Fielding will again
guide the hopefuls through their
technical challenges and signature bakes
before the final in November.
And as a treat to the show’s nine
million fans, the “cake week” opener has
been extended into a 90-minute special.
Here we speak to judges Paul and Prue
about what’s in store for this series.
■ GBBO, August 27, Channel 4, 8pm.
Any changes for the 10th series?
PAUL: The challenges have been scaled
back – not a lot – because I thought
we’ve been running away with some of
them. If you make them too difficult
people will not be interested.
How are the bakers coping?
PRUE: This is my third year – Paul’s
been doing it forever – so I don’t know if
it’s always true but sometimes you can
see a baker in the beginning and you
think he or she will be
fantastic and will walk it.
And it’s quite worrying
because you don’t really
want somebody to gallop
ahead. And almost always,
at some point, they do
really badly! So there’s a
sort of seesaw and it’s
really confusing.
Do you feel gutted
when a good person
goes because of a
bad mistake?
PAUL: I feel upset because I know
they’re capable of much more and in that
particular week they’ve messed up and
that’s it, they’re gone. The best bakers are
the ones that are good at everything.
PRUE: You can have a weak-ish week
but you’ve got to be better than the worst
one. You cannot afford to really cock up
thoroughly because that’s the week you’ll
go out. It’s not as if you can take credits
from week one and stack them up to go
against something terrible in week two.
Any other milestones coming up?
PAUL: This year I break my 500th
challenge over all Bake Offs – the
American ones, junior ones, Christmas
celeb ones – which is a lot.
Anything else that could be done
with Bake Off?
PAUL: I’d like to get an international
Bake Off going so we would challenge
the French version, or the Americans, or
There’s no
malice,
we’re never
wanting to
humiliate
people
PRUE LEITH ON GIVING
FEEDBACK TO THE BAKERS
SCONE
WELL
Prue, Nic
and Paul