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Great British Bake Off judge Dame Prue Leith recalls the horrific moment when she drowned a bag of kittens as a child
- Dame Prue Leith recalls the ‘traumatic’ moment when she drowned a litter of kittens as a child
- The 82-year-old Great British Bake Off judge penned the sad memory for her memoir I’ll Try Anything Once, in which she wrote that she and her mother dropped a bag of baby cats into the water just hours after they were born.
- She wrote: ‘My mother and I, then 11, had just drowned some kittens … and for weeks I imagined those poor dead creatures’
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Dame Prue Leith recalls the ‘traumatic’ moment when she drowned a litter of kittens as a child.
The 82-year-old Great British Bake Off judge penned the sad memory for her memoir I’ll Try Anything Once, in which she wrote that she and her mother dropped a bag of baby cats into the water just hours after they were born.
She wrote: ‘My mother and I, then 11, had just drowned some kittens… and for weeks I imagined those poor dead creatures.
Shocking: Dame Prue Leith, 82, recalls the ‘traumatic’ moment when she drowned a litter of kittens as a child
“Too many kittens were common and one day my mother, unable to find a home for another litter, decided to drown the last batch.
‘My protests were met by a firm: ‘Honey, it has to be done. They are only a few hours old. They’ll hardly know it’s happening.”
She added that her mother said they only had to submerge the bag of kittens for a short time to “sleep” them, but that they “fought like the devil for life.”
Looking back: The Great British Bake Off jury has penned down the sad memory for her memoir I’ll Try Anything Once
Dame Prue said her mother then changed her mind, but the television personality said they couldn’t stop and she kept the bag under until the animals “stopped meowing.”
It comes after Dame Prue revealed she had killed nearly 30 people with food poisoning.
The restaurateur remembered the event from her early career when her company, Leith’s Good Food, hosted an event.
Kitchen drama: It comes after Dame Prue revealed she’s killed nearly 30 people with food poisoning
she admitted that 28 people ended up in hospital with a man left in critical condition after being served an unsavory chicken mayonnaise.
Speaking on stage in Bath on the first night of her Nothing In Moderation tour last month, Dame Prue said: ‘He could have ended up in the morgue! You can’t be in the hospitality industry for thirty years without something going disastrously wrong.’
She recalled that her company was asked to put together a chicken mayonnaise platter for 25 people, but when five more guests arrived, the dangerous mistake occurred.
Dame Prue told the audience: ‘The cooks poached another chicken while the meat was still warm, which is a crime, and they mixed with the chicken that was already there.’
Throwback: The television personality founded her business in the 1960s, then opened numerous restaurants and training businesses (pictured in 1985)
She went on to say that the venue had no refrigeration and so the food was left out on an exceptionally hot day.
“This chicken was sitting there and lunch was very late and we managed to poison everyone,” she said.
She continued: “It haunts me that episode because everyone was sick. All but two of the 30 people ended up in hospital and one of them was in intensive care because he was very old and was a Supreme Court judge.”
“He could have ended up in the morgue and not in the hospital. That was a wake-up call.’
The television personality founded her company in the 1960s and opened numerous restaurants and training businesses.
Fencer: Dame Prue stars alongside her fellow Great British Bake Off judge Paul Hollywood (pictured) on the Channel 4 show