“Old age is not all bad. I'm lucky enough for it to be almost always good. I am, I think, as happy as I've ever been.” - PRUE LEITH

SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER, MARCH 2026

“I devoured it.” - NIGELLA LAWSON

“Few people have aged so gracefully and enterprisingly as Prue. How she's done it is a revelation, full of humour and practical advice.” - DELIA SMITH

“Oh my days, this book is an absolute JOY! It is like sitting down with your fabulous, straight-talking auntie who tells it exactly how it is... but with a big cuddle and a glass of something cheeky on the side”.
- ALISON HAMMOND

“Refreshing, honest and tremendously encouraging for those who are terrified of growing old.”
- ALAN TITCHMARSH

Getting older may have its challenges - but it can be a lot of fun.

In this candid, uplifting, and thoroughly entertaining book, Prue Leith explores the trials and taboos of growing older - along with its unexpected joys. Part memoir and part reflection, Being Old and Learning to Love It is packed with Prue's trademark wit, wisdom, and no-nonsense charm as she takes a spirited canter through the triumphs, trials and tribulations of ageing well.

Sometimes serious, sometimes funny and always engaging, Prue speaks with refreshing honesty about life as a modern woman in her eighties. Nothing is off limits: from love and sex, staying active, and finding fame on The Great British Bake Off, to friendship, family, and the occasional regret. She tackles the big questions we all have about getting older - about senility, time running out, dealing with grief, and her passionate belief in assisted dying - with the same frankness she brings to discussing when to retire, fashion & beauty, travel and gardening.

'We all are heading for old age, if we're lucky. It's a mystery for the young and hard to navigate for many of the elderly. Prue lays it all out for us, in her wonderful, honest, way.' - VIN + OMI

Now 85 years old, Dame Prue Leith is first and foremost a businesswoman, who made her name with Michelin starred restaurant, and Prue Leith's school of Food and Wine which she sold in in 1995. She has written more than a dozen cookery books, seven novels, and Relish, her original memoire in 2013, and has worked as a columnist for Daily Mail, The Guardian and the Daily Mirror.

Her first television appearance was in the 1970s as a presenter, and she returned to television to be a judge on The Great British Menu for 11 years until 2016 and a judge for My Kitchen Rules, which she left to replace Mary Berry in The Great British Bake Off.

She has also been active in general education, and many diverse organisations including Ashridge Management College, Kings College, and as Chancellor of Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh. While at the RSA, she led the successful campaign to use the empty plinth, now known as the Fourth Plinth, in Trafalgar Square to house changing sculptures or installations by the best contemporary artists.

She has been a non-executive director of British Rail; British Transport Hotels; Safeway; Argyll plc, the Leeds Permanent Building Society; Whitbread plc; Woolworths plc; the Halifax; Triven VCT; Omega International plc; and Belmond Hotels Ltd (formerly Orient Express Hotels) and is a director and investor in several start-up companies.

More recently in In February 2024, Leith's ten-part cookery series Prue Leith's Cotswold Kitchen began airing on ITV1. In September 2024, a second series was commissioned. In 2025, Leith participated in the The Masked Singer as "Pegasus", eliminated in the second episode.