Great British Bake Off star Mary Berry praises her successor Prue Leith and says she’s ‘just the person’ for Channel 4 show

FORMER Great British Bake Off judge Mary Berry has praised Prue Leith as “just the person” to take over her role on the show.

She said both her culinary expertise and her fairness had shone through in her first few weeks in the job.

Mary, 82, said she was pleased with the decision to recruit Prue, 77, and said she would have been upset by a successor she did not approve of.

She said: “Prue is just the person to do it. She knows that. I suppose if they’d ­chosen somebody who I knew couldn’t do the job and hadn’t the experience, I would have been sad.

“But I’m certainly not with Prue, she knows how to judge. She’s got the knowledge and she’s fair. That’s all we ask.”

Mary left the show, along with former presenters Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc, when it moved from its original BBC home to Channel 4 last year.

And she said she was very happy to still be working with the BBC but said of Bake Off: “I’ve done it for ten years and for various reasons I didn’t go.”

But she said she had not been in regular contact with former co-judge Paul Hollywood — who has stayed with the show at Channel 4. She said: “I haven’t seen Paul but we’ve done a lot together and I’d be very happy if he walked in the door right now.

“We’d have some good fun and he’d be a bit cheeky I expect and say ‘hello Bezza’.”

Mary has been busy since leaving the hit series — and will return to the judge’s seat for upcoming BBC kitchen-based contest Britain’s Best Cook.

She said: “Why should I retire? My husband says you should just do what you enjoy. He’s always pleased to see me when I’m not working. No, it works well as it is.”