I found teenage at a much more stressful than old age.
Can you remember when you were a teenager that was really
stressful. You were quarreling with this.
I was quarreling with my parents.
I was in love with the wrong people.
I didn't know where I was going. When you're young, you spend a
lot of time worrying about what people will think.
I do sometimes look at myself in the mirror and think, honestly,
this is too much. You've got, you know, you've got
orange earrings the size of tennis balls on your ears.
You've got these ridiculous glasses.
What is old? I don't know what OLD is, except
that it's liberating. Hello and welcome to Ways to
Change the World. I'm Christian Guru Murthy, and
this is the podcast where we talk to extraordinary people
about the big ideas in their lives and the events that have
helped shape them. My guest today is known to
1,000,000 as a judge on The Great British Bake Off.
But Prue Leaf influence stretches far beyond television,
from founding A prestigious cookery school and building a
Michelin starred restaurant to shaping national conversations
around food, education and public health.
In her latest book, Being Old and Learning to Love It, she
turns her attention to ageing, writing candidly about life in
her 80s. From love and loss to staying
relevant and what it really means to grow older.
Well, Prue, welcome. We we begin this conversation
usually with a question, which is if you could change the world
in any way, how would you change it?
Simple, I would make sure that every child at school learnt to
cook healthily and learnt to eat it, so that they'd prepare it
and eat it and they'd end up loving healthy food.
And if they we could do that to a single generation of children,
they would grow up liking healthy food and therefore
eating it by choice. And they teach their children
that way. And we'd solve the obesity
problem, I mean. You.
You've been involved with with Jamie's campaigns as well,
haven't you? Lots of campaigns.
I mean, this has been talked about for quite a long time now.
I mean, is it just cost? Do you think that means we don't
do it? People think it's cost, but
there are two things recently that have happened that will,
will, will change it. And I really believe if this
government sticks to what it says and the next government
follows suit, we could actually see some change.
First of all, the government has now set standards for food in
schools, so you can't give children nothing but deep fried
food and sweet things. So that's one great thing.
It puzzles me that it's taking them seven years to implement
it. I think they could do it
overnight because it's not huge changes.
You're not asking children to eat horrible food anyway, so the
food's going to be better. And the other thing is that
there's a, a company which I have to quickly declare an
interest, which is Leith School of Food and Wine.
Leith Education is now not, it's not mine at all.
But they have decided to spend all the money they make on
giving free cookery lessons to primary school children in the
state sector. So any school that doesn't have,
doesn't charge fees can apply to have it.
And what it is, is a really good screen with a curriculum and a
teacher who's one of our chefs who is so charismatic that kids
do exactly what they're told. And all you need in primary
school is a table and very simple equipment and very cheap
ingredients. And they will learn to cook for
nothing and. And how?
How healthy is your own diet? How healthy?
How? Healthy is your own diet.
Oh, it's it's well, except that I drink too much.
Yeah, no, I, I eat really healthily and I, I, I always
cook from scratch. I don't take, I don't do any
rules like avoiding carbs or, or, you know, measuring
anything. I just make sure I'd eat, you
know, eat the rainbow, lots of different colored veg and stuff
and change and eat a lot of different things.
I mean. You know, in your most recent,
you know, big famous incarnation, you've been
associated with bakery. With cake Cakes, yeah, they're
well and. You know, and obviously your
food life, you know, is, is, is, is very, very broad and diverse,
but that's what people think of you.
When people think of prude leaf, they probably think of cake.
They probably and and and. That is fundamentally unhealthy
eating, isn't it? If you if you eat nothing but
cake, of course it's unhealthy. But a piece of cake every three
days with. But it isn't sugar the thing
that we've got to change people's attitudes towards, you
know, from a, from a treat to something that's actually really
bad for me. For you, in a broad sense, we
should eat much less sugar, but I don't think that I I actually
think baking is a terrific way into cooking.
And once children's get interested in cooking or people
get interested in cooking might, it probably will start with a
brownie or, you know, banana bread or something.
You say we'll probably start with something sweet.
But once they get good at it and interested in it, they will
start thinking about what's going into their bodies and
we're interested in food. And then you start thinking, oh
you know, veg is not so bad. So you, I mean, I speak as a
parent, I suppose, which is that, you know, as we, when we
teach our kids how to bake brownies and cakes and all the
rest of it, we give them the sweet tooth.
Well, if you if you give them too much of it, but you know,
you don't have to give them nothing but sweet things to
cook. I mean, it's, it's much more
satisfactory to make bread. I mean, children love making
bread because it's magic. I mean, the fact that yeast
grows is just so addictive. They love doing it.
And if you haven't got time to make bread, then what about
scones? What about you can do all sorts
of things that don't have sugar? And as as you've got older, have
you, have you improved your diet?
You know, do you eat deliberately healthily now
because you're in your 80s? Or do you just eat the same way
you always have? No, I just eat less, I suppose
now because I'm, I suppose I, I need less, I sleep more, so I
need, I need less food. But I have never, I mean, I, I
have over my long life, I've been on all sorts of diets
because I'm, I don't know a woman who doesn't think she
needs to lose a lose a stone. I've always wanted to lose a
stone. So every now and again I've
tried recently, I've given up trying to lose a stone and I
stay pretty well the same weight all the time.
And I I eat just I did eat what I want.
So I have this argument with my mum because she she says, well
I'm so old now that I just want to eat whatever I want and that
she's got an incredibly sweet tooth.
So she just eats loads of really, really bad things.
And I keep trying to say yes, but she says, well, I'm going to
die soon anyway. I said but you, but you don't
want to die because you've been eating terrible things.
Yeah, well, I think it's a balance, isn't it?
I mean, you don't want to make her life miserable if she does,
if she's only like sweet food. But it is a mistake to eat
nothing but sweet food. Of course it is.
You know, your body is not built to cope with that much sugar.
My husband did the weight loss jabs and he is still on them.
He he lost 2 1/2 stone and he looks absolutely great.
It didn't affect his appetite. He is still, I mean, he eats
much. Unusual.
But it it did affect it in the sense that he doesn't want to
eat so much, but he does still enjoy.
His enjoys the food. Yes, because you tried them as
well. I was hopeless, but then I
didn't obey the rules. I just took, I just had the jabs
and I didn't do what you're supposed to do, which is eat a
lot of protein and, and make sure you have 1500 calories a
day. I was having about 200 calories,
which is a starvation diet. And so my body just sort of shut
down and said, well, I'm not losing a pound.
So I lost nothing. I lost nothing in about 3 weeks
of taking the damn jabs. And did you, did you take them
while you were on Bake Off? What was it?
No, no, no. Since I left and I and, and
really it was ridiculous. It was just because it was
working so well for my husband. I thought, Oh well, I've always
wanted to lose a stone, I'll have a go.
And I didn't. I didn't do it right.
I didn't read the rules. Yes.
But then I so I stopped and I felt so much better without
them. So now I've just given up.
Now let's talk about the book being old and learning to love
it. Why have you done?
It's a sort of a series of sort of rants.
Rants. Yes, I'm.
Afraid it is a series of rants. It's actually I, because I got
so irritated with people going on in a sympathetic way about
how terrible it, isn't it dreadful being old?
And I thought, no, it's great. I mean, I really enjoying it.
You have more time to do what you really like.
It's accepted that you can have a sleep in the afternoon.
I actually have my Pru's snooze written into my call sheet when
I'm on television because I like to have enough in the afternoon.
I could never have done that years ago.
And and also there's great advantages to being old.
You know, you don't care what people think so much.
So that's great. Do you think I will know
Whatever? But but what?
What is old? Define old.
Exactly. I don't know what old is because
I mean, except that it's liberating.
I mean, you, you get to an age, let's say 70 or 75, in my case,
8586, I'm 86 now where it is liberating because you just
think you don't care and you do what you want and you pick the
jobs you want. I mean, I've just had lived such
a lucky lot. I, I and I absolutely accept
that lots of people have a horrible old age and a lot of
people are unhappy or lonely or oh and not well.
But I have been just extraordinarily lucky and I'm
extremely well. I'm very happy and I'm having a
great time. Yeah.
I mean, all all of these supposed downsides to getting
old are things that you basically address.
But but I mean, is it that you are just very lucky and very
unusual and in a position where you've been incredibly
successful? You've been, you know, you're a
brilliant businesswoman and you're at now at a stage in your
later life where you have. I'm old.
Blind. I'm old, yeah.
But what I mean is like, you know, you can do what you want.
You've got you've made your money, you're happy, you're in a
relationship. You are the poster Graham.
Poster Graham, Yeah. I like the poster.
For for happy old age. I agree.
How? How repeatable is it for most
people? Oh, I agree, it's must be
extremely irritating to have somebody preaching about how
lovely old age is if you're if you're old age is not like that.
But I do think that there's AI mean I I don't want this to
sound like a self help book anyway.
It's just, it's just as you say it's, it's my opinion of of
various things, like for example exercise I enjoyed.
This bit. How exercise has saved me Do you
want? You know what my advice about
exercise is? Don't do it.
It's so boring and it takes so much time.
Just forget it. So I don't do any exercise.
Well, especially if you haven't done exercise all your life.
That's why. That's why men drop dead on the
golf course and things like that.
Isn't it Yes, suddenly start doing it.
But also I think, I mean, I suppose I'm quite active anyway.
I mean, I walk around a lot and I cook a lot and you walk around
the kitchen a lot. I think if if I was measuring
steps, I'd be probably, I don't think I'm doing 10,000 steps.
I'm probably doing 5000, which is probably quite enough for my
ancient age. But physically do you, I mean,
you know, you obviously we all feel, I feel I'm 56 and I feel
the effects of age. So you must feel that you can't
do things now that you used to be able to do 10/15/20 years
ago. My heart rather sinks when
somebody says to me, we'll take the stairs and I think, isn't
there a lift? But I do take the stairs.
But but how? So how do you make sure that
doesn't bother you or get you down, which it does for many
people? Because they go like, you know,
I hate the fact that my body's giving up on me.
No, what's the point of hating it?
I mean, you're not going to change it.
I'm a great believer in looking forwards, not back.
I mean, people shouldn't keen about what they've lost.
They should be happy about what they've got.
And you know, I don't want to sound as I'm preaching anyway.
I'm just saying what what I actually very lucky.
I do accept that it's, it's 90% luck and I have been lucky in
all my life. And I'm still tremendously lucky
because as you say, I'm, you know, I'm in love with my
husband. I've had two happy marriages.
My, my children are healthy, my grandchildren are healthy.
I've got enough money. I don't have to work, but I love
work, so I do. So I could not be lucky.
I, I, I do accept that. But, you know, some people are
just determined to be miserable. I think just occasionally you
want to say, and I get crossed with old people who are
ungracious about being helped. You know, if somebody, my mum
when we were little would be very strict about teaching us to
be nice to old people, you know, we hope open the door for all
ladies and open the door for anybody who's older than you and
pick up their bag and carry things for them and so on.
But when she got old and I would pick up her bag, she'd say, I
can manage in a very indignant voice.
Or she'd say, if you open the door first, she'd say, you know,
I, I can do that. Or I saw a woman on the tube, a
young man, rather shy around the mother stood up and asked her if
she would like a seat. You know, she'll agree, her
little lady. And she's looked at him
indignant. And she said, what are you
doing? She said, do you think I'm old
or something? And the poor fellow will never,
ever give anybody a seat again. I think sometimes old people are
their own worst enemy. And and do you think old needs
to be reclaimed as a positive thing?
I mean, as you say, when if you call someone old it's an insult.
And well, when I wanted to call that book being old, which is
what is it is called, my publisher said, oh, we can't
call it being old. Old is such a negative word.
And I said, why is it negative? You know, old age is no more
stressful for most of us than can you remember when you were a
teenager, teenager that was really stressful.
You were quarreling with this. I was quarreling with my
parents. I was in love with the wrong
people. I didn't know where I was going.
I mean, I found teenage much more stressful than old age.
And you know, for different stages of life have their
stresses and strains and old age is no different.
Anyway, I said it was going to be called being old.
They said it has to be being older because that softens it.
It's just be that's mealy mouthed so silly.
So it's called being old and learning to love it.
That's that's that's their phrase to make it look softer.
I. Mean you, you, you do address in
it, you know the whole the all the questions about health,
dementia, yeah, which you've got experience of again with your
mother. Yes, my mum.
My mum was away with the fairies for many, many years.
Yeah, that's, that's a tricky one because I I was giving a
talk about the book to some literary festival and a woman in
the audience stood up and said she was really offended and hurt
by the fact that I had used phrases like being away with the
fairies or going do Lally or bonkers or something.
But those are the words that we all use and so I had used them
in the book and actually I mean it quite affectionately because
I adored my mother. But she was absolutely nuts by
the end. And I mean so much but but she
gave us some amazing laughs. For example, one day, which on
her 80th birthday, we took her out to lunch and she'd been a
vegetarian for 40 years. So I had got chosen a restaurant
with a vegetarian menu and a carnival menu because my
brothers both were meat eaters. So I got the vegetarian menu,
gave it to my mum and she read it and she said this is all
vegetarian stuff. She said I don't want to, What's
this? Why are you giving me a
vegetarian menu? And I said, mum, you've been a
vegetarian 40 years. She's absolute nonsense,
darling. She said I'm I don't want
anything to do with those sandaled, greeny, freaky people.
She said. She said give me a steak.
And we gave her a steak and, yeah, loved it.
You know, there's some logic, some sort of daft logic still in
people's heads that is lovely. But.
But with our ageing population, people living longer, more of
these issues being more common, you know, we, you know, care
being one of the biggest issues, but we also have people like
you, you know, people with money, people who are healthy.
We're, we're still not tailored towards, you know, an older
Society of reasonably healthy old people who've got money to
spend, are we? I mean, you've kind of, you've
kind of got round the deficiencies by doing it all
yourself. So you know, you've become
famous for your clothes, you're famous for your glasses, you've
got your own range now. But but our consumer society, if
you like, is still all geared towards younger spenders.
Isn't it? Yes, it is, which is pretty
irritating. I mean, I think it's changing
though, because older people are older.
And I just said older than older people are beginning to wear
bright clothes. And I often have people say to
me, you know, you're so brave because you wear orange and red
and so on. I would love to.
I used to wear red when I was young, but now I've turned 50 or
60 or something, it's not appropriate and I want to bash
their heads. I mean, what do you mean it's
not appropriate? Old people need more help than
young people. If you're 25, you can dress in a
sack and you'll look absolutely lovely.
I mean, youth has its own beauty, doesn't it?
What However you think you look. If you're just young you look
great, but if you're old you need a bit of help and colour is
one of the ways to do that. But what would you say to
marketing people and big brands about who they're aiming their
money at? You know, do you, do you think
there is a big market of old people with money to spend who
would like to spend on? This Yeah.
I mean, my generation is, is the lucky generation that pretty
well did pretty well and and has money to spend.
And there are lots of us, you know, we're far more old people
than there are young people. So they're crazy if they don't
market to that to that group. But maybe the way is to market
through their children. Because the other thing that old
people often have is kind of feeling that they're that they
really shouldn't spend money on clothes because, you know, that
was this will see me out. I hear that phrase a lot.
I've got a very good coat and to see me out, I'd love a red one,
but you know, my black one is still perfectly good.
And it's, and, and there's something admirable about that
sort of putting up with things in a way.
But if it gives you real pleasure to have, I mean, I
think buying a yellow coat or a red coat and wearing it in the
winter is a positive mood lifter.
It just, it makes not only makes you feel happy to put it on, but
it makes other people happy to see you in it.
You know, people are lifted up by colour.
I mean, there's a reason we wear black at funerals.
It's 'cause we're miserable, yeah.
But I mean, you've also sort of got the opposite approach to to
many old people I know. And I'm thinking within my
family and my wife's family, which is what's become quite
fashionable is, is this whole death clearing thing, which is a
Scandinavian idea of people just getting rid of stuff.
You know, every time I go to my parents now, there's boxes of
stuff that, you know, they say, well, do you want this?
And well, why you get it? Why are you getting rid of it
now? We'll, we'll, we'll sort out
things when you're dead and gone.
Well, they're trying to save you from that.
Maybe, but but it does mean that their their life becomes very
very simple as they go old. But that may be, that may be
helpful because I often think I mean my heart.
My husband is a shopaholic. He can't stop buying stuff and
he buys lovely stuff and he's very good at it.
But my heart sometimes sinks because I think, you know, I
can't wear that many shirts because he buys all my clothes
and he'll come back. He buys your clothes.
He buys all my clothes. Yeah.
And jackets and everything and and I think I can't, you know, I
haven't got, I have not only have not got room on the rail
for them, but I haven't got days in the week to wear.
So I'm very lucky because he. Is that because he came from
fashion, so you've deferred to him on that or or or were you
never very interested in? Buying I could never bear
shopping. I mean, I hate, I mean, I've
always liked clothes but, and I've always liked colour, but
I've, what would mitigate against me bothering is that I
don't like shops. And, and I, I mean, it's the
worst thing in the world to go into a shop and to find 50
jackets you don't want, you know, and not, not one you do.
It's so depressing and it's a waste of your life.
John loves all that and he'll trawl through the Internet and
he, he, you know, he, he's been years in the fashion business.
So he, he, he control a shop very, very fast.
Whereas I get lost in things I don't want, you know?
You seem to be accumulating still quite a lot.
You know you've done your house relatively recently.
Yeah. I've.
Been doing some death clearing too, though.
You have, Well, yes, a bit because when you move house you
think this is the opportunity to get rid of a lot of stuff.
And we did in a sense, we downsized a lot.
We, we happened to then go and start building bonds and places
for the children to stay and so on.
So we've been building up again. But I actually did a huge clear
out four years ago and, and I still do.
I do. I have a friend who she, she has
a sort of every couple of months she does a charity auction,
football charity sale. And she absolutely loves me
because she gets lots of cast off, Bake Off clothes and cast
off my clothes and necklaces and lots and lots of stuff.
But I do have too much stuff. How What?
What is your advice for old people who want to still be able
to easily communicate and be friends with other generations?
Because I think that's one thing, again, that a lot of old
people struggle with. You know you can be a great
grandparent and have that relationship when children are
very. Young.
But when you're dealing with adults, there's a big there are
so many differences. You know, I think this is one of
the things we've really lost that society has lost this inter
generational thing. I do think it's hugely helpful
if you can make friends with your children, not just your
grandchildren, but your children in and and I mean, I know that
if I have my grandchildren, my children come to dinner with my
friends. They absolutely love it.
I mean, both, both of them love it.
They don't necessarily want to talk to me, but they're
interested in in my friends and my friends are very interested
in them because they're younger. And I think we, it's, I think
intergenerational. I love intergenerational
parties. For example, we have lots of
parties where one of John's mad purchases is he can't stop
buying small toys for children that are basically dangerous
toys. Little motorbikes or little quad
bikes or little tractors, and they all go like the clappers
and they're all real and if they have to wear body armour and a
hell. They're all the parents
nightmare. Yes, but you and so parents got
better look, but but they they absolutely love it and they go
roaring around the garden and they're actually they're quite
careful. And his point point is that you
it's better to teach a four year old to ride a bike than an 18
year old because the 18 year they're they're really
dangerous. If they're really good rider at
4:00 and they keep riding all the time, they won't be showing
off at 16. Did did you grow up with that
kind of intergenerational conversation and mixing?
Is that how you were raised? Yes, yes, I think we had much
more intergenerational stuff going on, but mainly because
families lived closer to each other and so my uncles and and
aunts would come and their children.
And yeah, I think we did have more intergenerational, but I
don't know what we can do about it because modern life sort of
prevents it, doesn't it? Do you know?
Do you? Are you friends with your
children's friends? Yes.
I mean, my children are sort of 1820.
So yeah, we're sort of we're, we're at the stage where we can
get to know them a bit. And I grew up similarly with
everybody around the dining table of all ages treated pretty
equally and expected to dive in on the political chat and
whatever it was we were talking about.
So yeah. And, and I suppose that's an
Indian thing as well. Something that's very nice,
yeah. But I but I do think it's, you
know, that separate, we talk about loneliness a lot when it
comes to old people. And I think something happens
with that separates the generations values, different
interests are different. Just, you know, the, the the
style of chat and conversation is different.
And if you haven't, you know, you're part of popular culture.
And so it's easy for you, I suppose, to keep up with the way
everything is not Not all old people find that it is that
easy. Yeah, no, I do have, I, I agree
I'm lucky in, in access. But I'm, I mean, I've got quite
a few friends who are my children's age, certainly
nieces, 3 girls who are all, all nieces and I'm close to all of
them. And so they're now close to
John. And you know, we do mix them
ages, but not enough. And I think for old people, not
a lot of old people, the only contact they get with younger
people is their children and the nurse in the home who will be 18
and not speak very good English. I mean, the the issue it brings
us to the issue that you've become also very closely
associated with, which is assisted dying, which is sort of
surprising for somebody who who clearly loves life so much.
But that again comes from personal experience.
Yes. I mean, I'm, I'm in favour of
assisted dying for simply for compassionate reasons.
I think there are some time that for some people, and there are
few, they're not many, but there are people about 7000 a year in
NHS hospitals dying a miserable death and they want to die but
they can't because it's against the law to anybody to help them.
And it's perfectly, it's illogical anyway because it's
perfectly legal to commit suicide, but it's not legal to
help anybody commit suicide. So you're not allowed to help
somebody commit suicide and if they want to, so if they want
to, they're they're having to do it entirely on their own without
any, nobody holding their hand, nobody helping them or anything.
It has to be a really desperate suicide.
So I'm in favour of a sister dying.
I think the the people who are opposed to sister dying and my
MP son Daniel is one of them. Danny Kruger, we should say, for
people who haven't made that connection, yes, sorry.
Danny. Yeah.
Danny Kruger. His argument is that it will be
too easy for vulnerable people to be made to feel that somehow
they ought to opt for assist to dying in order to give up their
bed to some more worthy person who will, and that old people
might be somehow shuffled out of life unwillingly.
But, you know, there's no evidence of this from countries
that have assisted dying. And they've been many studies,
including one by the House of Commons who sent delegates to
look. And they came back saying
there's no evidence of coercion. And there's no evidence of the
slippery slope, which is their other great fear that the law
will be passed very narrowly for just, let's say, people who are
within six months of dying, who are mentally competent, who so
you so would you wouldn't be able to do it if you were
mentally ill and so on, you know, so quite narrowly.
And then once it's through, it'll get widened by amendments.
Well, that hasn't happened anywhere else either.
Anywhere. And nobody has what?
None of the countries that have it and they're lots, they're
about 30 or 40 now. None of them have.
There's never been an attempt to repeal the law.
So what, what did you make of the the way the private members
bill that has just gone fallen sort of went through because
that that debate was really interesting to watch.
And that, you know, it started off with sort of lots of people
backing it and, and lots of high profile people like, like Danny
explaining their opposition. But then people also turned and
people who had supported it then decided, oh, actually this is a
bit too contrary. People had thought it was the
wrong bill, they said. They were supported the idea in
principle but thought that the bill was fraud, which is fair
enough, and that was an intelligent debate.
But what happened in the House of Lords was absolutely
disgraceful. I mean, a handful of Lords who
frankly, I regard as completely bigoted proposed nearly 2000
amendments, well over 1000 amendments, I forget exactly how
many, which was a record by far from for any bill has never had
that many amendments. And they were deliberately there
that their whole plot, plot and plan was to make sure that the
bill would run out of time and therefore it would fall because
that was happens. I mean, that's the way
Parliament works. If, if, if, if a bill can't be
debated in the time allotted to it, it falls and then you're
back to square 1 again. And that's what they did.
And they did it deliberately. It was totally cynical.
The House of Lords is meant to be there to scrutinize bills and
to offer suggestions for improvement.
They are meant to improve a bill, but by the time it comes
to the Lords, it's already been passed by the House of Commons.
The House of Commons had voted it through, expected it to pass,
and this six laws scuppered it deliberately, cynically.
Did did you wish you were? You had been there, yeah.
You had wanted at one point to be in the Lords.
Haven't you a long? Time when I was much younger, I
thought if I could only get into the House of Lords, I could
change this and I could change that and I could do this.
But you know, that never happened.
But, and, but I would have liked to be there just to vent my
rage. But, and they in fact,
interestingly, there were a lot of Lords who were opposed to the
Bill on principle, but they were indignant at what those other
laws were doing to sink it because they thought that's it.
It was denying them a vote. They wanted it to be debated and
they wanted a democratic solution.
I mean, this is not Democrat, this is not democracy.
It's not how them Lords is meant to work.
And I mean, what will happen of course, it just, it just means a
delay because nobody's going to give up.
It'll come back in the next Parliament and probably if it's
if the Lords try try to block it again, they'll invoke the
Parliament Act which is a bit complicated to explain, but
basically the Parliament Act will prevent the House of Lords
scuppering a bill if the Commons want to see it passed.
I mean, after all, the House of Commons are elected MPs, the
House of Lords unelected. I mean, how, how do you think
feel about this personally, if you were to get to the point,
you know, heaven forbid that you, well, we were terribly ill
or whatever it is, knowing that your son, I don't know how your
other, how, how your daughter or any of the others feel about it.
And, and maybe that's private, but knowing that he is so
publicly against it, how do you feel about yourself?
Ever. I'm not worried about it at all.
I mean, first of all, you would do it.
My, if I wanted to do it, if I needed to, I would be able to do
it and my husband would help me, I'm sure.
But I think the interesting thing is that, you know, Daniel
and I made a film together about this for Channel 4.
And we, we went to America and Canada to have a look at how,
how it works in practice. And interestingly, we both came
back feeling what we had seen had had supported our case.
You know, we didn't shift at all really.
I mean, I did feel I understood more his side of things and I
think he became more sympathetic to my compassion arguments.
And he he did end up saying, look, if if it's legal and you
want to do it, I will hold your hand.
So he would be there. He did say that they weren't.
Yeah. He wouldn't approve of it, but
because I wanted it, he would do it.
The Joys of Old Age are your sort of penultimate chapter in
this What are the key joys of getting older?
People need to recognise that they perhaps don't.
No, I think they're quite small in a way, but but they're all
all pervasive. And I, we've talked about it a
bit. I think the chief boy, the chief
joy is, is not caring what people think when you.
Do because you also say you you. You don't like being rude, and a
lot of old people don't care about being rude, but you do.
No, but that's a. That's a long a lifetime of
being taught not to be rude. So I can't, I find it difficult
to be rude, but I don't mind. I don't, I don't really mind if
people disagree with me. I don't, you know, it doesn't.
You know, when you're, when you're young, you spend a lot of
time worrying about what people will think.
I mean, I, I do sometimes look at myself in the mirror and
think, honestly, this is too much.
You've got, you know, you've got orange earrings the size of
tennis balls on your ears. You've got these ridiculous
glasses and you've got, you know, and you're, and you're
wearing a, you know, zigzag. You do.
You do care. So I I, I say that, but then I
think bloody hell, I like it, so I'm going to do it.
You know, so you dig it for you. I'd rather for me.
Yeah, exactly. Rather than the approval.
And then the other minor joys, which are a complete joy.
And one of them that I had never realised was such a joy is
having a Kip in the afternoon. It's just lovely.
Pru's news, it's called. And, and in fact, the joke is
that the, when we're filming, you know, we have this with this
little show called truly Scotswold Kitchen, which is on
ITV. And it's really, it's, I love
that show because I get to control everything, you know, I
get to decide what we're going to cook.
I get to choose the guests who come on it.
And, and it's all filmed in my own kitchen.
And it's just my idea of heaven because I'm such a control
freak. But the joy of it, one of the
joys of it is that around about 2:00 in the afternoon, I'm
really tired, you know, old lady, I get tired and then I go
to sleep for an hour and so does everybody else.
It says Pru Snooze on the on the call sheet 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM
or. And everybody does.
Everybody has to be quiet because they're the kitchen is
underneath my bedroom, so I'm asleep up there.
Everybody has to shut up. And you know they love it
because they walk around the garden or they or they text the
girlfriends and the crew actually love having an hour off
in the middle of the day. I mean, the the thing I think
I've I've, I've been too blushing to ask you really about
as as well as about love. But the show has clearly made
your husband a star as well. The new show.
And and again, I think that's something you're very unusual
in, in that you've done it later on in life and you talk about it
very openly. Again, I mean, are there are
there any? I know this wasn't written as a
sort of a self help book, but what would you say to other
people about who who kind of think, well that's not for me at
my age? You mean love?
Yeah. Well, they don't want it.
For God's sake, don't have it. You know, nothing could be worse
than the idea of having to force yourself to pretend to be keen
on somebody when you're not. But I, I.
What are they missing out on? Oh, I think again, maybe it's
luck or pheromones or whatever it is, but I met John when I was
70 and what did surprise me was it felt just like being 17.
You know, you start worrying about Willy text you, you start
composing a text and thinking, well, I can't send that.
I've been an author. And then deleting it and then
trying again. And then why doesn't he ring up?
What's the matter with the guy? He's so crazy, so crazy.
And, and we were together for five years before he's, and you
know, it's just an old fashioned thing, but I was still waiting
for him to pop the questioner And I kept thinking I'm a, I'm a
grown up liberated woman. Why don't I just ask him?
And I think, well, I couldn't bear to because he might say no,
really unhappy, at least if I, if he's not said, will you marry
me? And I have not said anything.
There's still a good chance you will, and you did.
It took a while. Well, I'm very pleased for you.
Thank you very much indeed, Pru Lee, for coming in and talking
to us about being old and learning to love it.
I, I think you're on a curve. You know, I think there's going
to be quite a lot in this. Well, is it an upward curve?
That's what you need to do, right?
Good. I, I think so.
I think you're probably at the beginning of a of an upward
curve. Well, I'm, I'm really happy and
I'm very grateful. I know I'm I don't want to.
I just know that I can sound really smug and I don't want to
be smug. No, I don't think people think
of you as smug. I think of you as successful and
impressive and and very nice. So thank you very much for
coming in. And that's it.
Four ways to change the world. You can watch these interviews
on the Channel 4 News YouTube channel.
Until next time, bye bye.