Star Comment: Surely a recipe for success
She is the oldest contestant ever to take part in The Great British Bake Off. And Diana Beard, who is 69, sees it like this: "I represent a generation that did bake its own food."
Talk about piling on the pressure. She is not just out there battling for herself. She is flying the flag for a whole generation, and a country tradition of getting those hands covered in flour and whatever.
She grew up on a farm at Hanmer on the Shropshire border and her mother was an excellent cook, as was her grandmother. Her impressive CV in the baking stakes includes being a member of Hanmer Women's Institute from the age of 12.
The BBC reality show has touched some sort of nerve with the British viewing public. It is difficult to say what that nerve is, but it may be it has reached to some deep-seated primitive urge among ordinary members of the public to bake their own cakes rather than take the exceedingly easy option of getting them off the supermarket shelf.
Many people argue that food that you make yourself tastes better than the manufactured stuff. Whether that is true depends on your level of skill. Shop-bought cakes taste the same every time, and look exactly the same every time. Home-made cakes are a new experience every time. And after all that time and effort, you just have to enjoy them. Otherwise, what was it all for?
Diana, who lives near Whitchurch, is a standard bearer and an inspiration, and her example is one to make us feel ashamed of our easy lives when food is on the table after five minutes in the microwave. Cooking for the love of it is different than cooking for commerce. If you make something at home you also know exactly what has gone in to your creation.
In Diana's case, she has made a point of using Shropshire products on the television show as she wants to promote the county.
There will be many older folk like her around Shropshire and popular television shows like this at least hold out the hope that the skills will be taken up by a new generation, otherwise future Britons will be condemned to blandly uniform fare from commercial production lines.
Diana is not letting on how things went on the show. But with her experience and practical knowledge, surely it is a recipe for success?
