Top 100 Quotes by Mary Berry

Having children is the greatest thing that can happen to you as a husband and wife. They are infuriating at times when they're little, but on the whole, they're such a joy. I don't think I was the most brilliant mother when they were young. I had quite a bit of help because I was working and I enjoyed my work.

As parents are usually working, they haven't time to teach children about cooking, and it's a wilderness. They should be given healthy recipes - some standbys so that when they leave home, they don't live on junk.

One of my first jobs was as a recipe tester for a PR agency. One week, the editor of 'Housewife' magazine called my boss and asked me to write a column - the cookery editor had gone away on a press trip. I was terrified.

At 17, I went away to Pau in the south of France for a few months to study domestic science - including cleaning windows with newspaper and water - while living with a Catholic family with 10 children.

The very best hotel I've stayed in is the Intercontinental on Park Lane. We went there for the Chelsea Flower Show a few years ago, and it was sheer luxury. Everybody had a smile on their face. I came home and changed all my pillows because the hotel ones were so beautiful.

'The Great British Bake Off' is family entertainment. There aren't many programmes where all ages can sit and watch from beginning to end. Everything else is violent, cruel, and noisy. We're educational without viewers realising it.