Interview with Martha Collison, British Baking Sensation
I am waiting for the email. I have been corresponding with Martha Collison, audience favorite from The Great British Bake-Off for two weeks. As soon as I hear back again, we are doing a phone interview for Lilybell Magazine's Back to School issue (I know, school isn't even out yet, but we must plan ahead!)
My husband and I discovered the BBC show rebroadcast on PBS and it became a favorite. First off, I love baking, but I also like a show where the contestants are civil. Among the contestants was a 17-year-old baker named Martha, who was juggling the weekend filming with final exams in high school.
Martha is a baking prodigy and had the whole of Britain and the US pulling for her. She made it into the quarter finals, but the pressure got to her on the eclair challenge, and she was sent home.
I did a bit of Google stalking and the more I learned about Martha, the more I liked her. She is now 18 and enjoying a gap year before university. During that time, she is using her celebrity to support Tearfund, a UK-based group dedicated to ending child-trafficking. She was recently in Cambodia, learning first-hand about the problem there. This week, she is also participating in #belowtheline, a weeklong endeavor to eat on less than $1.50 a day. This morning she posted a picture of her bowl of porridge.
In the months since the show aired, Martha has made numerous public appearances and now has her own baking column in a national newspaper magazine. She has almost 40k Twitter followers! But in spite of all that, she is grounded, humble, and a vocal Christian.
Can't wait to talk to her. She is just the role model that Lilybell loves to feature: smart, generous, faithful. I hope to learn more about her and ask for her best "back to school" tips.
Photos from: Daily Mail and The Big Cake Show.
