Mary Berry Day
Scott declared the morning Mary Berry Day as the television cook turned 90. The programme treated the birthday like a national event, complete with a special jingle, listener celebrations and repeated references to “scrumptious” bakes and “lovely snaps”.
He suggested listeners could play Mary Berry Bingo by taking a dainty sip of Earl Grey whenever somebody used one of her familiar phrases. At home, Scott and Sam had already made Mary’s scones and were planning to use eggs from an Easter-style hunt to make a Victoria sponge.
Listeners marked the day with rocky road, cheese straws, lemon-drizzle cake, Yorkshire puddings and recipes from Mary’s books. Pippa brought Mary Berry cupcakes into her staff room, while others said they were changing ringtones or arranging tea-time alarms in her honour.
Scott also became convinced that Mary had invented frozen food. Listeners corrected him by explaining that Clarence Birdseye was central to commercial quick-freezing, while Mary had instead promoted the use of freezers in home cooking. The show played a 1976 clip of her explaining how she stored ingredients and prepared purées for freezing.
Linda the Mary Berry lookalike
Linda joined after more than a decade working professionally as a Mary Berry lookalike. She had previously worked as a nurse for 30 years, but strangers repeatedly stopped her in public and asked for photographs or autographs.
Colleagues encouraged her to contact a lookalike agency, and she went on to appear at events and in an advertising campaign. Scott and the team were struck by the resemblance when they saw her on camera.
Linda admitted that she sometimes allowed members of the public to believe they had genuinely met Mary. One man had boarded a bus and announced, “Mary Berry’s on the bus”, before asking for a selfie.
Unlike some celebrity doubles, Linda could also bake. Scott joked that people who thought they had met Mary Berry over the years might now need to reconsider the encounter.
She had never met Mary herself but said she would love to. The interview gave the programme a living centrepiece for a morning otherwise built from listener tributes and archive clips.
The Easiest Quiz: Rachel scores 25
Rachel from Leeds opened the week’s competition. Her husband had become obsessed with Welsh ketchup, or “saws coch”, after a holiday and wanted to build a pyramid of ten bottles in their newly fitted kitchen. The supplier only had four, and the family were already down to three.
Rachel moved through questions about sauces, the Fourth of July, cleaning products, tea, cities, ice, swimming, maths and milk. Asked to name something she might lose, she answered “trousers” and then had to convince the quiz she had genuinely done so.
She said she had once returned from a drunken night wearing a skirt instead of the trousers she had gone out in. The explanation was accepted and the run continued through bananas, kangaroos, soup, gold rings, Indian takeaways and musical instruments.
Rachel reached 25 before failing to name Vernon Kay as the presenter who followed Scott on Radio 2. She cycled through Trevor Nelson, Paddy McGuinness and Jeremy Vine before finally finding the right answer too late.
Scott stressed that 25 remained an excellent opening score and told her to enjoy being Streak of the Week for at least 24 hours.
The Birthday Game
The Birthday Game celebrated another listener sharing Mary Berry’s birthday. The feature moved through three former number-one singles, with the contestant deciding whether to keep an early choice or risk being left with the final song.
24 March 2025: Vernon Kay
The handover naturally returned to Mary Berry Day. Scott also had to explain that Rachel had failed the quiz by forgetting Vernon’s name, despite hearing him every weekday at 9.30.
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