I've always had an image of Mother's Pride flour, very respectable and middle-class.

I'd been brought up in a society which didn't talk about sex, food, money, religion or politics. Those things were all deemed slightly rude.

People often ask what my favourite food is, but the answer depends on what I last ate. I love sausages and mash. But if I'd already eaten them for lunch, then you asked me at tea-time, I'd probably answer 'crab salad.'

Very few parents give out healthy lunchboxes due to pressure from their children.

Aged six, I sailed from South Africa to England by steam ship with my family. It was a three-week journey. I remember crying on my birthday when I didn't get the enormous teddy bear that was for sale in the ship's shop but, aside from that, I had a wonderful time.

I'm a good cook, I am not a great cook. I'm an absolute fraud.

I am not saying celebrity chefs don't encourage children to cook. However, their programmes are so entertaining, you end up stuffing your face with Pot Noodles instead of learning from them.

I'd love to look incredibly glamorous, but I am a wholesome, comforting nanny type: I think I look like an advertisement for wholemeal flour or something.

I went to drama school but soon realised I was terrible at acting, so I ditched drama school for art school.

I used to always employ South Africans and Aussies and Kiwis - I can't admit this, well I can now, but I couldn't admit it at the time - but I didn't want wet English lads who didn't want to work in the catering trade anyway.

I get more questions about my necklaces and specs than I do about food.

You can serve good food on a budget provided you don't waste it.

I prefer pub food to posh food.

I couldn't live without my faithful companion, Megs the dog.

I go to Michelin-starred restaurants as part of my job, but that's not how I want to eat all the time.

My first taste memory is of our nanny in South Africa making white bread sandwiches with salad cream, which was potato mashed with a cheap mayonnaise thing with bits in it of - I suppose - pickled cucumber. I absolutely loved them.

Now the look of the book dictates the sale. In my day you could still buy a good cookbook in paperback with no pictures at all. I doubt if that would sell today. But those books were much used: they lived in the kitchen and got splattered with custard and gravy.

It's tough to eat well if you don't know how to cook.

I've been an entrepreneur, a writer, a food correspondent. I might have been an architect - but I'm bad at maths.

In my 40s: I had two children young enough to think their parents wonderful, my business was booming, I was happily married and living in the Cotswolds with a veg garden and ponies in the paddock. Who could not be happy?

Food shouldn't do you any harm, obviously you don't want a bad diet, but it should be one of life's great pleasures.

It's so nice to slip into the lap of luxury.

People say I'm a celebrity chef, and I am on telly a lot but that's because I judge contests. Perhaps I'm more of a celebrity eater than a cook.

I didn't actually know what a treasure 'The Great British Bake Off' was, so I just thought, 'oh it'll be fun to do that, I'd like to do that.' Then when I went and had to have an audition and meet Paul Hollywood, I suddenly thought, 'this is really important.'