Having cakes as a business certainly changes things for me - I don't now sit at home doing a cake for the fun of it anymore. But it's an extremely happy and pleasureable business to run because people are generally buying cakes for celebrations.

I learnt basic cookery by watching my mum.

I don't agree with the whole 'my mother's my friend' approach, because you're their mum and there has to be a difference between the generations.

Having cakes as a business certainly changes things for me - I don't now sit at home doing a cake for the fun of it anymore. But it's an extremely happy and pleasureable business to run because people are generally buying cakes for celebrations.

The things you leave school knowing - some dates and long division - so much of it has been of no use to me. Schools should teach the basics of cookery, first aid, how to look after your money and how to speak foreign languages. Useful things.

I was always very determined, as was my husband, that we wouldn't let any of our children act when they were young.

I look at myself objectively and in a way I see myself as a commodity. Your name becomes somehow outside yourself. Now, when I'm at home being Mrs. Scarfe, that's when I'm most myself.