Desperate Dame Prue Leith spent a day adrift at sea before she was finally rescued by a surly Sardinian fisherman, she has revealed.
The shaken Bake Off judge had been relaxing on a motor boat off the Italian island’s coast when the engine failed.
She said: “I couldn’t start it and the wind was getting up. I thought, ‘This has the makings of a really bad novel’.”
To make matters worse, her panicky attempts to get help were misinterpreted.
She said: “People would pass, not close enough to shout to them but close enough to wave and I’d be waving wildly and they just waved back, thinking I was just being friendly.”
After a lonely day on the ocean for Prue, 82, a Sardinian fisherman finally came to her rescue. But she recalled: “He was so angry with me. He said, ‘You tourists, you risk your lives. You could have drifted all the way to Corsica!’
“And he just gave me absolutely blazes. And there was I... sunburnt.
“I was thirsty, I’d had a whole day of absolute misery. But he was quite right and I was very foolish.”
Dame Prue, who is touring her show Nothing In Moderation around the UK next year, joined The Great British Bake Off in 2017, after Mary Berry left the hit show.
Its festive episode will air on Christmas Eve at 8.25pm on Channel 4, when five celebrities compete.
They are Time Team presenter Tony Robinson, The Big Breakfast’s Gaby Roslin, broadcaster Terry Christian, Brookside’s Claire Sweeney and Popworld star Miquita Oliver.
