Prue Leith reveals she loves to go on pub crawls in the Cotswolds on a Harley-Davidson

In the quaint, picturesque Cotswolds village of Stow-on-the-Wold, residents quietly going about their business are disturbed by a pair of leather-clad bikers revving a Harley-Davidson engine at ear-splitting volumes.

The pesky pair make much mischief, setting off the whole area’s car alarms to their delight – and locals are completely unsurprised to find it is 84-year-old Great British Bake Off biker Prue Leith roaring past on three enormous wheels. The chef’s husband, John Playfair, has discovered the perfect pitch of their £40k Tri Glider, which boasts an 1800 cc engine, to rattle nearby cars into setting off their alarms.

“He thinks it’s hilarious and everybody panics,” admits Prue with an eyeroll. “John is well known in the area. He’s very gregarious. Everybody knows him – and that he’s quite childish sometimes.”

She adds with a chuckle: “He realised that if he revs the motorbike at a certain pitch, it sets off everybody’s car alarms. When I first rode on the back of it, I was really, indignant because I said: ‘You know, this is noise pollution. This is unfair. You can’t go driving through villages disturbing people with this horrible thing.’”

However, John, 78, insists the locals “love” the noise of the reverberating motor. “They do,” concedes Prue, with an element of surprise. “There is something about a Harley that people just love the sound of it. It’s safe to sit on because you can’t turn over, so you don’t have to wear a hat. It’s like a Reliant Robin tricycle, and we go whizzing around the country.

The Great British Bake Off S5 Ep1, Maggie and Prue

“It’s got a lovely leather seat, it’s so lovely and comfortable, you can smell the newly mown grass as you go through. We pub crawl – I do the drinking, and he does the driving.” Prue, mum to Tory MP Daniel Kruger and adopted daughter Li-Da, has noted that John’s children refer to his trike as his “mobility scooter”.

Prue and fashion designer John married in 2016, and now live together with their two Cavalier spaniels in a barn conversion in a two-acre plot in Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire. The pair moved in together when Prue downsized from her £10million manor house Chastleton Glebe, after the pair lived in separate houses for numerous years.

Prue hosted an ITV series, Cotswolds Kitchen, in which she cooked up culinary treats in their home. But Prue admits that she is not a big fan of all the household’s chores.

Prue Leith with adopted daughter Li-Da Kruger pictured at Prue's home in Oxfordshire

“I got into terrific trouble a little while ago because I said I hadn’t made a bed in 50 years,” she laughs. “But I do wash up – we have a couple of dishwashers, so I load the dishwasher.

“I love cooking and gardening, but as now I’m such an ancient old lady, I don’t really like kneeling and bending over. I remember just being really proud of myself when I was laying paving with stone slabs. I had a wheelbarrow full of stone slabs, and I could wheel this thing and then lift up the slabs. I spent the whole day doing it.

“I don’t think I could even lift the wheelbarrow, you know? I couldn’t do it any more. John does the heavy work and I do the pretend gardening, like Marie Antoinette – I plant troughs.”

Prue was chatting at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show as an ambassador for the Freedom from Torture charity, and baked bread using wood in the Sanctuary for Survivors garden. She has contributed a recipe to the charity’s new fundraising book.

But while she enjoys gardening, she does not always have the best luck at home. “I was digging in the vegetable garden, and I put a spade right through a toad,” she grimaces. It was really upsetting. Though it would be worse to kill a hedgehog.”

Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith

Prue is currently filming alongside fellow Great British Bake Off judge Paul Hollywood for the Great American Baking Show. But far from any dreams of the Hollywood hills, she reveals the show is filming in Pinewood Studios, Buckinghamshire.

“It’s all to do with the rules the unions have,” she says, explaining that makeup artists and hair stylists would cost more in the States. “It’s cheaper for them to come to us.” Prue notes Paul is currently struggling to sell his pub, The Chequers Inn in the Kent village of Smarden.

“They can’t get permission for change of use,” she adds. “They can’t sell it as a pub because pubs are closing every day – nobody wants to buy a pub. They can’t get the staff, and people aren’t coming.

“The people objecting to the change of use are all locals, but when you say to them, well when were you last in there? And they say: ‘Oh well I didn’t come in.’ Use it or lose it. There are a lot of rich people in Cotswolds who don’t cook. So they go up to pubs all the time. So that helps the pubs.”

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