Mary Berry, is an English food writer, chef, baker and television presenter. At the age of 13, Berry contracted polio and had to spend three months in hospital.
As a result of this, she has a twisted spine, a weaker left hand, and a thinner left arm. She has stated that her forced separation from her family while in the hospital “toughened her up” and taught her to seize every opportunity.
Mary Berry applied for a job at the Dutch Dairy Bureau when she was 22 years old, while also taking City & Guilds courses in the evenings. She then persuaded her boss to pay for her professional certification from the French Le Cordon Bleu school.
She left the Dutch Dairy Bureau to work as a recipe tester for the public relations firm Benson’s, where she began writing her first book.
Mary Berry has written over 75 cookbooks, including the best-selling Baking Bible in 2009. Her first book was The Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook in 1970.
She hosted several BBC and Thames Television television shows. Berry is an occasional contributor to Woman’s Hour and Saturday Kitchen. She was a judge on the BBC One (formerly BBC Two) television show