This Week...Mary Berry: A Woman Lost

Commentary

"Please, I am so very tired." – M. Berry

"I'll have the largest Rolex you have please." – P. Hollywood

"“I got soaked. I enjoyed that." – A. Wenger

MARY BERRY: A WOMAN LOST

The bells did not toll a sorrowed ode to those fallen on 22 September of this year. The flags of our nation remained at full mast and there was no 21-gun salute to illuminate the night sky, a night sky that was a little darker than the day previous. The silence echoed across our land louder than any sound could be. Louder than any chime, any hymn, any cry. This week Mary Berry left the Great British Bake Off.

A nation divided, mourned united. This week we lost a part of ourselves, a part of ourselves that laughs at sexual innuendos about erections and secretly likes Toploader's 'Dancing In The Moonlight'. The Great British Bake Off is more than just a TV show, it is our nations identity alongside being treated like the gluttonous shameful pigs that we are at service station Harvester's and complaining about roadworks on local radio stations. While the effects of Mary's departure has shaken the nation to its very core our sadness is not sourced from the departure of our beloved, it is the suffering Mary will continue to endure at the hands of the BBC which fuels our mourning.

Mary Berry remaining at the BBC is like placing your parents in a retirement home, you convince yourself it's the best place for them but deep down you know it will be the death of them. There they will remain until their eyes are sunken and their dreams, dust. Forced into pastry-based slave labour "just one more cherry bakewell Mary, then you can sleep" they say, a sleep that never comes. Why won't they let her sleep? She is so very tired now is Mary. Days turn to weeks turn to months turn to years. All fond memories of a Mary Berry before she joined the BBC have long been forgotten, her warm, vibrant personality now deflated like oh so many failed soufflé. "Well well Mary this just won't do" say they BBC before hurling the ramekin to the ground. "We'll just have to make it again, won't we. We'll go all night if we have to."

'Mary Berry's Baking Bible', 'Mary Berry: Foolproof Cooking' and 'Mary Berry's Family Sunday' are not only best-selling cookery books but chapters in the demise of a once great woman. Her exclusive line of kitchen products are the means in which she is shackled, her eyes scream 'help me' in every promotional campaign that binds her. She is so very tired. Please, let her sleep.