Episode
Prue Leith: 'I've had HRT patches on my bum for more than 40 years!'
- Podcast
- The Shift with Sam Baker
- Published
- Mar 10, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3337
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/
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Summary
Somehow it’s the end of our 20th season and I’m delighted to say that my guest today is a woman who has spent the last decade giving us a masterclass in ageing. One of my very own old bird role models, Prue Leith. Now 86, Prue has lived a multitude of lives. Chef, businesswoman, author, food columnist, board director, DBE, campaigner for Dignity in Dying and television host, most recently, of course, a nine year stint on Great British Bake Off, which she quit earlier this year. She opened her restaurant Leith’s in 1969, was awarded a Michelin star and turned it into an empire including a catering business and a cookery school, which won her the Veuve Clicquot Businesswoman of the year. After she sold those businesses Prue became a successful food columnist, author and broadcaster. She has written 14 cookbooks, nine novels, a memoir, and currently has a column in the Oldie. How the hell has she done it? Well lucky us, she’s just written a new book, her 25th, Being Old and Learning To Love It and she’s here to tell us. Prue joined me from the cotswolds to talk about what she loves - and hates about being old. Reclaiming being an ‘old woman’, widowhood, luck, brain fog, why she has no time for age-related fashion rules and why she thinks it’s a crime to be bored. Plus taking HRT for 40+ years and having ‘patches on her bum’ for most of her life! CW: On a more serious note there’s also discussion of suicide, the right to die and Prue’s own end of life plans. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Being Old and Learning to Love it by Prue Leith as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can t…