The grande dame of broadcasting has, at 89, a new TV series and a book due out. Here she discusses painting, politics and swapping hot dishes with her lockdown neighbours
, a few years after the full details of Bakewell’s long affair with Harold Pinter came to light: “Even when she was behaving badly, she was behaving well.
Covid gave clarity to that ideal. Bakewell has been married twice – “17 and 25 years apiece” – and has two children and six grandchildren, but for the past 22 years she has lived alone . She had not long moved house when lockdown struck and she was, against all appearances, deemed “vulnerable”. O’Hagan and her other neighbours came to her rescue. “Andy said, ‘We’ll cook one day and bring a meal over. And you cook the next day and bring the meal over to us.
She seems so present and curious about the news that her long past hardly gets a look in as she clears her plates. I’ve written down a couple of sentences in my notebook from Pinter’s love letters that she recently donated to the Bodleian library: “Joan. First time I’ve ever written your name. Joan. Joan. Joan. Joan. Could fill up the pages with it,” and “Your eyes … All you do. Secret girl.
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