London - At 79 she is at the height of her powers, but Mary Berry is thinking about a time when she becomes too old to cope.
The Great British Bake Off star said she would like it if her children could give her a pill to enable her to take her own life if she “lost her marbles”.
Berry, who also said she had no wish to live to 100, is the latest celebrity to voice support for legalising assisted suicide.
Under current guidelines, if her son Thomas or daughter Annabel chose to help their mother die they would be committing a criminal offence.
Her comments come as peers prepare to scrutinise the Assisted Dying Bill, promoted by former Labour Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer, in a House of Lords committee. The Bill aims to legalise the practice for some terminally ill patients.
Berry said: “I certainly don’t want to be a burden, although under British law you can do nothing about it. But I would love my children to be able to give me a pill, although of course I do understand that could be abused.”
Her mother Marjorie Berry died three years ago at the age of 105. That motivated the Bake Off star, who will turn 80 next March, to think about her future.
“I have no desire to be a centenarian,” she said. “I think 90 is a great time. You’ve had a good innings. You have to deal with the cards that have been dealt, of course, but I don’t think very old age, if you haven’t got your marbles, can be very nice.
“My mother was in very good health until the last few months. And health is key, isn’t it?”
Marjorie Berry’s husband Alleyne died aged 85 in the 1990s.
Speaking about how her mother coped with later life, Berry told Radio Times: “My father was the leader of the family and we thought she would go downhill after he died, but far from it.
“She was very cross that everyone kept dying around her – ‘Another member of the bridge team gone’, that sort of thing. She drove her car until she was 95, when we had to persuade the doctor to say she couldn’t do it any longer.”
Assisted suicide remains a criminal offence in Britain, technically punishable by up to 14 years in prison, although guidelines issued in 2010 indicated that anyone acting with compassion on the will of a dying person is unlikely to face charges.
Pressure groups on both sides of the debate reacted to Berry’s comments.
Alistair Thompson, from Care Not Killing, said: “This is deeply depressing for such a well-loved celebrity like Mary Berry to speak out in favour of legalising euthanasia. It is clear that her reasons for backing euthanasia relate to her fear of becoming a burden. It is this reason that means we should never change the law.”
However Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity In Dying, welcomed Berry’s contribution. “A change in the law on assisted dying would give people who are terminally ill and mentally competent the choice to control the manner and timing of their death,” she said.
“[It] would mean dying people would no longer have to take drastic measures behind closed doors, and that family members would not have to risk prosecution to help a loved one to die.”
In recent months a string of well-known names have backed assisted dying. Actress Jane Asher, 68, said she would have no hesitation in attending the Swiss euthanasia clinic Dignitas if she had an “unbearable” terminal illness. Singer Cilla Black, 71, has also said she supports the clinic.
TV hosts Judy Finnigan, 66, and husband Richard Madeley, 58, have agreed an assisted death pact should one fall seriously ill.
In recent months Berry – whose third child, William, died in a car crash at the age of 19 – has been investigating her family history as part of the BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are?
Among her discoveries were that her great-great-grandfather Robert Houghton was a baker, something she had never known before. - Daily Mail
* Great British Bake Off is currently showing on DStv.