A well-known celebrity has revealed that he often spots Dame Mary Berry “in the village”, and that he and the former Great British Bake Off judge are, in fact, “local” to each other
A celebrity neighbour of Dame Mary Berry has shed light on the baking legend’s true colours, dubbing her an “icon”. As culinary favourite Mary turns 91 today (March 24), well-known radio host Vernon Kay has remarked that he spots her “in the village” on occasion, revealing that he and the former Bake Off judge are, in fact, “local” to each other.
Vernon, who lives in a six-bedroom property in the town of Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, with his wife, Tess Daly, shared the revelation on Tuesday morning’s episode of his BBC Radio 2 show.
After he noted that it’s Mary’s birthday today, Vernon played a clip from her 90s series Mary Berry at Home, in which she walked viewers through the process of preparing a Canterbury tart.
Afterwards, Vernon said: “I see her every now and again in the village, Mary Berry. She’s local to us, or we’re local to her. Very, very sweet lady. Always good fun and an icon.”
He didn’t reveal the precise village that he was referring to on air, but past reports have placed Mary’s former home in the village of Penn, where she is said to have resided for more than 30 years in a Grade II-listed property.
However, it’s believed that Mary has lived in Henley-on-Thames, a town on the edge of the left bank of the River Thames in south Oxfordshire, with her husband, Paul J.M. Hunnings, since 2019.
Penn is a short nine-minute drive to Beaconsfield, while Henley-on-Thames is slightly further away, about 28 minutes by car, so it would suggest that Mary and Vernon still live within 30 miles of each other.
Meanwhile, a funny story has recently resurfaced about Mary’s run-in with the law, which she previously recounted during an episode of The Graham Norton Show, while chatting to Claudia Winkleman.
She explained that 25 years prior, she was asked to travel to the US to take part in cookery demonstrations. But she would ultimately land in hot water as she’s “very particular” about “getting everything right”.
Mary said: “I also try to look ahead, so I thought I ought to have my recipes, all the ingredients, weighed out in case the plane is late, or in case the connections aren’t right.
“I can go straight on stage to do my cookery demonstrations. So, I weighed out each recipe in little bags, and I had the flour and the sugar and everything grouped together, so that I could lift it out for the first recipe and so on.
“When we arrived, there were dogs, and I love dogs, and I was just ready to go and they all, three of them came up with their noses sort of like this [does the impression], and I thought ‘come along’, but they didn’t want to know me.
“They just began and then suddenly the airport became empty, and there were just uniformed people, and I was with Lucy Young, my assistant. They parted us – Lucy there, me there – into two cells.”
Claudia jokingly said Mary was in a cell with a “selection of packets containing white powder”. It was further disclosed that police asked Mary if she was expecting to “make money” from them.
She replied: “Oh, I do, and my fee has already been agreed.”
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