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- [00:01]
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- [00:44]
Mia Sorrenti
Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Sorrenti. In this episode, we return for part two of our recent live event with Bake Off. Judge Michelin, star, restaurateur and author Prue Leaf Leith joined us recently at the Royal Geographical Society to discuss how to live fully and age well. She was in conversation with broadcaster, journalist and author Mariella Frostrop. If you haven't heard part one, we recommend jumping back an episode to get up to speed. But now let's return to the conversation live at the Royal Geographical Society in London.
- [01:17]
Interviewer / Host
You're clearly also a very good businesswoman. And in fact, in the chapter where you talk about being on the various boards and things, I mean, it's different, disingenuous, because I think that you work really hard and you clearly have an aptitude for it and you talk about being on these boards, were we talking 30 years ago or so? And sitting around a table with 20 men and you. And actually what comes screaming out of it is your ability to not only hold your own, but to make really tough decisions and so on. Is that a side of you that you're less comfortable about exposing?
- [01:59]
Prue Leith
No. I love business. I've always liked business and think it's really interesting. And I hate it when children are fed with the idea that to be in an office is boring. I thought being in an office was boring and that's why I became a cook. One of the reasons I thought, well, I don't want to be in an office, it'll be boring because I had this. My mother was an actress and that made me think that, you know, I would be an actress. And then that didn't work and so on. But once I got my business, I started as a cook and I ran around London with, you know, some tools and ingredients and cooked your dinner. A cook for hire was what I was. And then that began to expand and I got assistance and so on and suddenly I was in an office and other people were in the kitchen and I was doing. And I found that just as fascinating. I mean, this sounds a rather silly thing to say, but a profit and loss sheet can give you exactly the same buzz of satisfaction if it's got the right number in the bottom in the right color as having done a wonderful buffet, a table that has got, let's say, a wedding cake and chandeliers and flowers and beautiful food. And when you look at it, you we did that and that gives you a buzz. And when you look at a P and L account and it's got good numbers on it, we did that. So I love business and I want kids at school to realize that business is great.
- [03:43]
Interviewer / Host
But especially I think young women perhaps because for such a long time, going back to your experience, it's been presented as something that was more anomalous. If a woman was successful in business and if she display sort of male characteristics, then that was not a particularly good thing either. And do you think things have changed a lot over the period of time?
- [04:06]
Prue Leith
Yes, I definitely think so. I mean now you look at how many young women have small businesses and young men too. But there's much more culture now among the young of entrepreneurship. A lot of it I think will be driven by the fact that they can't get jobs. So they. Because it's really hard now to get a job, young person. But you know, there are all sorts of things. You know, John and I have this television program which I hope you will all go watch called Pruleaf's Cotswold Kitchen. And it happens on a Saturday morning and it's on itv. So that's the commercial for that. But it's not just about cooking. We go to see little businesses in the Cotswolds, all roundabout people who have started, you know, there's a woman who started a flat farm near Chipping Norton and it's fantastic, you can go there and pick your own flowers or they deliver and stuff and you know, people making honey or preserves or little businesses. And fortunately, because the Cotswolds is now full of posh people with lots of money, which of course it wasn't at all when I first went there.
- [05:23]
Interviewer / Host
Well, have you noticed that's Notting Hill and the Cotswolds that you've single handedly
- [05:28]
Prue Leith
popularised genius for finding. But people often say to me, but isn't it awful that it's all full of Americans and Rich people and so on. No, it's great. All these people spend money and they spend money and these small companies, people making cheese and people making. Just terrific.
- [05:50]
Interviewer / Host
So you mentioned about young people finding it harder to find work now. And we know that that's a problem and an increasing one that AI isn't necessarily going to be helpful with. Is it something that you worry about in terms of your grandkids? In terms of.
- [06:06]
Prue Leith
I do. And that's. I mean, I do. I really fear for them and not just because of AI, I think. I mean, this is the first. Well, you all know this, so I don't need to tell you. But isn't it appalling that we now have wars in Europe? I mean, we've had our whole lives living through peace. I was born in 1940, so I was born in the war, but from then on, once the Second World War was over, there were no wars in Europe. And now we have. It's terrifying. And so I look at my grandchildren and think one day they might get called up and have to go to war. Dreadful. And yes, I do worry about them. And then the sort of. And I end up thinking, you know what? You're not going to be here to see it. And there's a sort of selfish satisfaction in that. Just that I won't be there.
- [07:09]
Interviewer / Host
Yeah, yeah.
- [07:11]
Prue Leith
No, because maybe it won't be like that. Maybe it'll be brilliant.
- [07:15]
Interviewer / Host
Maybe every generation thinks it's terrible until they're our age and then you see.
- [07:19]
Prue Leith
Yeah, maybe every generation thinks the world is going to part.
- [07:25]
Interviewer / Host
Speaking of the world going to pot, the food industry in the uk, I mean, it's changed immeasurably since you started out. And, you know, for a lot of us, it's so much better than it was, you know, in the 1980s when you could get some very old fashioned kind of stodgy pasta and maybe a curry, and that was about it. And, you know, British food wasn't really considered, you know, edible by everyone else in Europe. But a strange thing seems to have happened because obviously there's been this wonderful proliferation of great British food. There's been a proliferation of cookery programs. And we all sit and watch wonderful cookery programs and things. And yet at the same time, I was really struck. I went to the supermarket the other day and I hadn't been because I'd been doing it online for a few months. And I went to the supermarket down the road for me, and it seemed to me that far from there being less, you know, pre made Food and less ultra processed food. There was more of. Everything was in a packet, everything was ready made. It was really quite hard to find actual ingredients. So what do you feel that the situation is today?
- [08:35]
Prue Leith
Well, I think what's happened is that the divide between what used to be just called the rich and the poor, but is now more to do with people, you know, sort of cooking and gastronomy, if you like, is almost as kind of hobby for rich people. And there is a genuinely, enormously larger gap between what poor. Even today in France, the poor eat the same food, or at least desire to eat the same food as the rich. Everybody likes a steak frite. Everybody likes a green salad with French dressing on it. Everybody likes, you know, frite and soup. Everybody likes cassoulet and so on. It isn't a class thing at all, but we have a class divide about food. And it's a tragedy because. However, I just want to tell you something which it will sound like a bit of a commercial, but I promise you I have no financial interest in this at all anymore. But what was Leith's School of Food and Wine now belongs. I sold it, but I've still been involved with it. And the woman who now owns it is very rich. And she decided that she would put all the profits of the school into children at school learning to cook. So last week we launched an online. Well, it's not online, it's videos with a young chef who's very charismatic and little children absolutely adore him. He's like a hero to them. And he teaches, he's the expert. So if they buy into the program, the teachers don't have to be cooks to teach the program because he's going to do the teaching. Everything is done for them. They're like the shopping lists, and they just press how many children in the class. It tells you exactly how much to buy and it tells you what equipment you need and so on. And he takes the children. And I was watching it last week in five classrooms, all at different stages. And with the little ones, for example, he says they're making yogurt pots. So they put a bit of yogurt in and then they chop the fruit up and they get an arithmetic lesson. While they're chopping up, they chop their grapes in half and they've got six grapes and they chopped them and how many grapes have you now got? And if you chopped it. So they build in all sorts of arithmetic and stuff into the class, and then they. And they learn how to peel a tangerine and take the Pith off and all this and they stack up these little things and they all absolutely love it. I have never in my entire life and I've taught thousands of children to cook. I have never met a child who didn't enjoy cooking. They love it. They absolutely love it. And so every, any state school, non fee paying school can get this whole program for free for the whole of from key stage one, which is four years old, to when they leave primary school. And then there's, we are already in senior schools but they have to pay.
- [12:18]
Interviewer / Host
But isn't the problem that they barely have kitchens anymore because most of the time they're just heating up frozen food for lunches and things. And the fact that there's no cookery lessons at all all in schools anymore.
- [12:30]
Prue Leith
Exactly. And how do you expect children to eat healthily if they have never been? The way to make kids like healthy food is for them to learn to cook it. If they do stuff themselves, if they've made something, they will taste it. And if you catch them young enough, they love it. And I mean these kids were all have, we've been testing this in, in 50 schools for 5,000 children. So we really know what we're doing now. And every one of those children were enthusiastic about what they think and of course they all eat it.
- [13:07]
Interviewer / Host
Do you think it's something that government should be more invested in? Because clearly to be healthy and hearty at your age in a way depends on what you fuel your body on in the intervening decades.
- [13:20]
Prue Leith
Well, the trouble is that this LEAFS program came out of despair that the government would never do anything because I mean, I've been trying for 50 years to get the government to realize that you have to teach children to cook if you want them to be healthy. And it would save a fortune. And if you just think about it, if you get one generation of children who like healthy food, actually prefer it and who are prepared to eat it, vegetables and all the rest of it, they'll grow up and they'll teach their children. You know, we could save the nhs. We could save, we could have a much healthier nation in a single generation. We just have to start now. But I've been saying this for 50 years, 60 years, and it's always been the government saying we can't afford it or we haven't got the school time. There are other children have got to learn maths and other stuff. So this new thing is not going to cost the government anything. And it won't cost, all it'll cost the schools is the Ingredients and if they've got any gumption, they'll get their local supermarket sponsor the ingredients.
- [14:26]
Interviewer / Host
You clearly care passionately about that. You also have raised your voice in the chorus, speaking for dignity in dying in recent years. And I just mentioned you're hale and hearty. Now I understand, you know, people who are suffering from a debilitating and terminal illness, perhaps being very invested in the topic, but what is it that got you so animated about it and why
- [14:51]
Prue Leith
do you care so depression about dying a sister dying? Well, most of the real, the supporters of a sister dying, if you scratch the surface, they've all seen some relative or friend have a horrible death. I mean, that's what makes, turns them into a campaigner. And that certainly happened with me. My brother had an absolutely horrible death in an NHS hospital because doctors are very nervous to give people too much morphine, which would still the pain, but it might also push them over the edge. And so they're frightened of being accused of murder and so they restrict the amount of morphine they can have. And that means that in my brother's case that in every four hours he would be in screaming agony. And I mean the screaming agony for an hour before the next jab in morphine came or file and morphine. So that's why I got into it. But the argument is very interesting. My son, who's an mp, actually leads the opposition to assisted dying and I'm very active in the promotion of it. So we don't agree with each other at all. But you know, I mean, I do understand that some people, especially religious people, feel very strongly that it's actually wrong to do, to assist a death because God giveth and therefore God should take away or something.
- [16:34]
Interviewer / Host
And then of course a lot of people believe that, you know, malevolent relatives are going to be doing away with
- [16:42]
Prue Leith
the frail and the. They're very worried about two things. One is that the idea of coercion, that people will be bullied into it, and the other is the slippery slope argument that once you get a law through for, let's say people who are dying of a terminal, incurable, painful disease, the next second we'll want to allow it for people with mental problems or with people or for children, or we'll expand it. But all I can tell you, in all the countries, and there are now dozens and dozens of countries where it is legal, there is no evidence of any slippery slope or coercion. There was a parliamentary all party committee who went to study how it works in other countries like Canada and the States and came back saying they found no evidence of coercion. No evidence. And why don't we just look at what other people are doing and follow them? And now in the end it'll get through. But at the moment it's being held up by a bunch of Lords who are filibustering. They have seven Lords have tabled over a thousand amendments in the House of Lords and just so that there won't be time for the bill to be debated and if it runs out of time, it falls and then you have to start right again in a year's time.
- [18:21]
Interviewer / Host
Make you angry?
- [18:23]
Prue Leith
Yeah, I don't know.
- [18:26]
Interviewer / Host
I imagine it does. Actually, though, I think you might be quite hard to ral because I am intrigued by how you deal with something that emotive. You know, we live in very polarized times. People take positions and they take it very personally when other people have opinions that differ. And yet you manage with your son Daniel to have not only opposing positions on their sister dying, but I wouldn't have you down as a reform voter necessarily. I don't know, maybe I've got that wrong. So how do you, how do you manage to like have Sunday lunch without knives being full?
- [19:08]
Prue Leith
Actually, neither of us, we both discuss these things so much elsewhere that it's the last thing we want to discuss with each other. But we obviously we've had, you know, I mean, I texted him recently and I said, you can't be pleased with what the Lords are doing and he tried to defend them, but a rubbish argument, frankly.
- [19:35]
Interviewer / Host
But isn't he now. I think now he's saying that we need to have less sex but more children.
- [19:41]
Prue Leith
Well, I haven't heard that.
- [19:43]
Interviewer / Host
We do need more children, but less sex, generally more within the home.
- [19:48]
Prue Leith
I think that's probably right. I think that's probably right. I mean, I do think Daniel does sound quite old fashioned, but he really believes that the family is a unit we should support and community is a. We should support communities and families and things should start from the bottom, not be, you know, we shouldn't have. It shouldn't be all top down. And he does, and I think he's right that probably lots of unthinking sex is not good for anybody. It makes illegitimate children, which is not good and it's ultimately unsatisfying and wrong. I think he's probably right.
- [20:42]
Interviewer / Host
I wonder what you would have said if we'd said that to you when you were 70 and you and John had just met. Quite honestly, you might have had an altogether different attitude.
- [20:58]
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- [23:29]
Interviewer / Host
Let's go back to the book because we're running out of time and the whole audience here, I'm sure is desperate to ask you Questions which you're going to get the opportunity to do in a minute. You can take over and do a better, better job than me. But you start and end your book by reflecting on the maxim age is a matter of mind. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. Do you think that that actually is true for most people or do you think that the good fortune that you've described throughout this hour of talking to you is what's given you that opinion? Because obviously for a lot of people old age means infirmity, it means loneliness. You know, for a lot of women in particular in mid age going through menopause. And we haven't even talked about hrt, have we?
- [24:17]
Prue Leith
Who should?
- [24:18]
Interviewer / Host
Because that's how I restrained myself.
- [24:21]
Prue Leith
You're a fine one to talk because you're a great campaigner for testosterone.
- [24:24]
Interviewer / Host
I'm probably a bit like you and Danny. I've talked about it so much outside I can't talk. But you know, do you think that if we didn't have such a dismal picture reflected at us of what old age means that we would actually be able to navigate it better?
- [24:42]
Prue Leith
I do think so. I do think we have too miserable a picture of old age. The very fact that my publishers didn't want me to call the book Just Being Old, whereas if I had written a book called Being Young bestseller, they would have thought that was positive. Being old is negative, but it shouldn't be. I mean, I think all ages have their difficult bits and of course there are a lot of people who would just not recognize my kind of being old. But this is just a very personal take. I'm not saying that it works for everybody and I'm not saying, you know, my mother used to say her whole thing was, her mantra was put a smile on it. It didn't matter what, you know, she would say, you know, if we were feeling grumpy and stuff, she'd say put a smile on it. We were sitting at table and she would do this gesture. She'd take it as if you were grabbing the sides of your, you know, your mouth, your mouth and pull it up to the top and tie a butt bone to tie your side. And she would just do this gesture which meant start smiling. And there is something in that that you can, I don't think you can make your nature cheerful and optimistic and forward looking and happy if you are depressed or have good reason to be miserable. You can't talk yourself out of that, but you can, you can make some difference. I think some People are quite deliberately, especially old people are deliberately cross all the time. And I watched a woman in the tube a couple of years ago and somebody stood up for her and said, would you like my seat? And she said, what are you doing? Why, what do you think I am? Old? I mean, she was very aggressive about it. And my mother used to say, you know, when we were young, she was very hot on good manners. You know, you have to open doors for older people and you have to pick up their case and all the rest of it. We were always actually trained to do this. When she got old and I opened a door to her, she'd say, I can do it. Or if I pick up her case, she'd say, you know, I'm perfectly capable, you know, and you think you could
- [27:23]
Interviewer / Host
just say thank you.
- [27:24]
Prue Leith
And if, you know, older people could stop doing that, they could just be grateful that somebody's helping them. They could be, you know, just happy and pleased that somebody cares about them.
- [27:38]
Interviewer / Host
Just finally, we've talked a lot about career highs because there have been so many. It's like you're permanently on this floating cloud. But there have also been career lows and businesses that didn't work out and things. And I wonder, just going back to, you know, your grandchildren. I'm slightly worried about them being driven around your grounds on the Polaris, by the way.
- [27:58]
Prue Leith
Oh, that's not true.
- [27:59]
Interviewer / Host
She doesn't walk around the garden anymore. She just drives with her grandchildren.
- [28:03]
Prue Leith
No, you do. My husband has a really good way of making sure that children come to see us and that's. He buys these really dangerous machines. You know, you see the little three year old driving a motorbike and it's a proper little motorbike with an engine and it's just two wheels, no stabilizers. And this little kid goes zipping around. I mean, he does have a helmet on and he's on the lawn. And John's theory is that it's better that they learn to ride a motorbike when they're young because they haven't got very far to fall and they'll be, by the time they're 16, they will be absolutely confident and they won't be showing off.
- [28:48]
Interviewer / Host
Well, in a funny way, that might also be the answer to what I was going to ask you, which is with this generation of seemingly risk averse and slightly scared of the world young people who are probably going to have to do all kinds of different jobs in a job market that's rapidly changing, what would be your advice about how to Tackle what might seem like failure in the moment, but invariably is just change.
- [29:17]
Prue Leith
Mariella, why do you think I'm qualified to write?
- [29:20]
Interviewer / Host
Because this book is full of lessons. I'm just asking for an.
- [29:27]
Prue Leith
It's full of rather egotistical chat. It's full of what? I think.
- [29:31]
Interviewer / Host
I disagree. I think it's full of lessons in how to get. How to be old and happy.
- [29:36]
Prue Leith
Yes.
- [29:37]
Interviewer / Host
And so now I'm asking you, let's transfer it to the young. How to be young and not afraid and to take risks and, you know, to feel that you're not failing.
- [29:49]
Prue Leith
I think their parents are much to blame. You know, it's very interesting. In 1974, when my children were born, that was the highest crime and violence was at its peak. Ever since then it's come down. You would never think that if you. When my children were little, I would say to them, look, if you ever get lost, just ask a grown up. Well, now, when I said that to my daughter, I said, why don't you just ask? She said, mum, you couldn't do that. You can't tell it. And they think all strangers are dangerous. And actually the stats absolutely don't prove them right at all. They're much safer now than they were when they were little. And I think kids are overprotected. I heard them describe recently, I think you might have seen an article, I think it was Mary Wakefield in the Species, saying that modern parents are like curling. They're curling parents. You know that Scottish thing where you. Where you. You sort of sweep everything out of the way of the curler of the stone so that nothing is ever. You're smoothing the path. Parents spend all their time smoothing the path of their children, making sure that they've never heard the word no. I really think perhaps I'm getting to be a grumpy old lady. I think it's wrong. I think children need to take risks. They ought to be trusted to walk to the shops by themselves. They're honestly not going to get abducted and raped.
- [31:38]
Interviewer / Host
Well, interestingly, I interviewed a woman called Lois Price, who's this amazing female explorer, and she's driven from the very tip of North America to the very tip of South America, the tip of North Africa, right down to Cape Town. And I said to her, but it must be so scary to be, you know, a woman on your own in those places. And she said, do you know, I've had one encounter that wasn't particularly good. But she said, other than that, people are just delighted to see you. They want to show you the way. They want to give you. They want to give you a meal. They want to. And I guess there's a lesson, not just for young people in that, but in all of us, that the world is actually full of nice people. Full of nice people and less terrifying than we think.
- [32:22]
Prue Leith
I absolutely agree. I think most people are really nice. And if you're not, and it's infectious if you're, I mean, John is an extraordinarily friendly fellow and, and he chats to everybody and they immediately light up. And whether it's a taxi driver or, you know, just anybody guy who sells a newspaper or something, if you're friendly, they're friendly.
- [32:54]
Interviewer / Host
Well, you're a very nice woman, I have to say, and I very much enjoyed my part of the evening. Isn't she wonderful, ladies and gentlemen? Thank you so much. Jane Cruelly.
- [33:08]
Mia Sorrenti
Thanks for listening to Intelligence Squared. This episode was produced by Margarita Valparto and it was edited by Mark Roberts for ad free episodes and full length recordings. You can become a member@intelligencesquared.com membership and if you'd like to join us at future events, you can see our full program and buy tickets over@intelligencesquared.com forward/attend. You've been listening to Intelligence Squared. Thanks for joining us.