London - Mary Berry has admitted feeling guilty for putting her career before her children.
The Great British Bake Off judge, 81, confessed as guest editor of BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour.
Miss Berry, mother of three children including William who died in a car accident at 19, was food editor of Housewife magazine in the 1960s.
After each pregnancy she took just five weeks’ maternity leave.
The cook, married to Paul Hunnings, told presenter Jane Garvey, 51: “I worked all through my children and I felt guilty almost all the time because my contemporaries were not working.
“Nowadays you have flexi hours and much more holidays. Employers were not so tolerant.”
In 2011 Miss Berry also told the Daily Mail that she was reluctant to take maternity leave as she feared her post would be filled by someone else while she was absent.
Daily Mail