Dame Mary Berry reveals how playing croquet saved her life after doctors warned she would die in four years if she didn’t exercise
- TV cook Dame Mary Berry claims croquet saved her life after breaking her hip
- The 87-year-old’s GP told her she would die in four years without exercising.
- He followed his hip surgery at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading last year.
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Dame Mary Berry started playing croquet after her doctor told her she could die in four years if she didn’t exercise.
The 87-year-old TV chef talks about the warning in an interview with the Daily Mail’s Weekend magazine today.
He broke his hip in a fall while gardening last year and underwent surgery at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading, where he stayed for several days.
Dame Mary Berry started playing croquet after her doctor told her she could die in four years if she didn’t exercise. The warning came after she broke her hip in a fall while she was gardening last year and she underwent surgery at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading, where she stayed for days.
Dame Mary said: ‘My GP told me: “You have two options. You could sit in a chair and not exercise and most likely be dead in four years, or you could walk (uphill too!) and do as much as you can, and it will take 18 months to fully recover.” And God, she was right. I’ve worked out and had a lot of physio and it’s still not quite normal, but it will be.’
Having taken up croquet, she is delighted to finally have a sport she can play with her 90-year-old husband Paul Hunnings. ‘We just started playing croquet. I have never played a sport with my husband before because he says I have no sense of the ball,” she said.
‘But we have lessons with a lovely Finnish lady, she is very patient with us and we love it! So it’s a great joy to be able to play sports together at last.
The lady now plays croquet with her husband Paul Hunnings, 90, and is delighted that they can now play a sport together.
‘My husband used to play rugby for Saracens, and tennis and squash, but now that he’s 90 he can’t. But croquet is perfect for people our age. We play for two hours and he says he’s knackered by the end, but after a little zizz he perks up again.
Dame Mary was picking sweet peas when she tripped in August 2021. She broke her hip and had to wait three and a half hours for an ambulance to arrive.
A few months ago, she tested positive for covid with her husband on a holiday in Corfu, but she is grateful that they were able to isolate together.
There’s a selection of visually stunning and delicious recipes from her latest cookbook, Cook And Share, in Weekend magazine today. The book is accompanied by a six-part BBC2 series, Mary Berry – Cook And Share, which begins on September 7 at 8pm.
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