Mary Berry has recalled an “alarming” situation that saw her mistakenly arrested for drug trafficking in the US.
The celebrity cook, who celebrates her 89th birthday on Sunday (March 24), was pulled over by customs officers due to the baking ingredients in her suitcase. The former Great British Bake Off judge told The Graham Norton Show about a 1993 trip that almost ended in disaster because of a bag of sugar.
“I was arrested 25 years ago,” Mary explained in 2018. I was going to the US to do some cookery demonstrations and was worried that there might be problems so I weighed out all the ingredients – flour, sugar – and put them all in little plastic bags.”
READ MORE:You’re storing eggs wrong – Mary Berry says they last longer if kept ‘the American way’
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Airport officials were alerted to the Queen of Cakes’ potential misdemeanour after sniffer dogs were drawn to her luggage.
(Image: WireImage)
Mary continued: When I arrived at the airport the sniffer dogs made a beeline for me. Suddenly I was surrounded by uniformed people and my assistant and I were put in separate cells. It was alarming.”
Undeterred, however, Mary gave the officers a glimpse of her sass after she was asked if she was going to make money from her supposed ‘haul’. She says she told them: “I do and my fee has already been agreed.”
(Image: BBC)
Mary, who went on to front Britain’s Best Home Cook after leaving Bake Off, has also recalled another incident involving the police – albeit in tragic circumstances. Her son William, who was born in 1969, tragically died in a car accident while on his way home from university in 1989.
The star was informed of her son’s passing when a policeman rang the doorbell while she was patiently waiting for him and his sister Annabel to return home for lunch. Discussing the harrowing incident, she opened up while appearing on The Mary Berry Story in 2016. “It was about 1pm,” she said. “The doorbell rang and a policeman was there. Immediately, I knew why. He said, ‘There’s been an accident and I’m sorry to say your son is dead’.”
(Image: Nick Harvey/REX/Shutterstock)
She added: “The staff were so understanding. They said, ‘Would you like to see William?’ He looked so beautiful and so lovely. His cold face…It was nice to say farewell.” Later on in the programme, Mary reflected on a memorial plaque she had seen which displayed details of a mother who lost three sons in the First World War.
The star recalled: “I looked and knew how I was feeling having lost one. I thought about how she must have felt having lost three. Then I thought how lucky we were to still have our other two children. We had William for 19 years and he was so much fun. We have great memories.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
