Mary Berry: "I didn't want to leave the house!" How gardening helped me through grief
6/1/202649 min
Mary Berry has been married for 60 years and says she and her husband have never had a cross word. Her secret? Do a lap of the garden before saying the thing you might regret.
In this chat with Fearne, Mary shares the simple principles that have guided her life: be kind, contribute to community, and prioritise time in nature.
Mary’s 91, and her mum lived to 105. She believes a busy mind makes a happy person, so offers advice for getting into your gardening era (Fearne’s not quite there yet) regardless of how much outdoor space you have.
Mary also reflects on the wartime childhood in Bath that saw her school being bombed and her family needing to grow their own food. Plus, how do you move through the grief of losing a child?
Mary’s book, My Gardening Life, is out now.
If you liked this episode of Happy Place, you might also like:
Mary Berry’s first Happy Place chat
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsFearne Cotton· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Hello, and a massive welcome to Happy Place with me, Fern Cotton. This is the show that learns from other people's life experiences. Today, I'm chatting to Mary Berry.
Mary Berry· Guest0:12
When we were young, it was wartime. My father really didn't want a garden, but it was part of Dig for Britain, so immediately our back garden w- was full of root vegetables, raspberries, strawberries. We liked picking those. But Mom said if everybody gave up sugar in their tea... In those days, not many people had coffee. Everybody had sugar in their tea. If you gave up sugar in your tea, there would be some left to make a cake, and everybody did in the household give up sugar.
Fearne Cotton· Host0:44
Guys, how do I find you today? I've had, uh, one hell of a week. [laughs] I am... You know when you feel like you're slightly going mad because you've just done too many things. There's been a lot of, like, after-school activities, like, millions of podcasts and talks, which obviously I love doing, parents' evening. It's like one of those weeks where there's no time for the gear change. It's like I'm, one minute I'm podcasting, and then I'm talking to a science teacher about my kids' grades, and I feel slightly mad, um, which probably means I need to pause at some point, like I'm sure many of you do. And maybe this episode is exactly that for you, a, like, you time. I highly encourage it for you