Mary Berry has said she was ‘fortunate’ to have had time with her son before he died aged 19 in a car accident.
The former Great British Bake Off host, 89, has been married to her husband Paul Hunnings since 1966.
The couple share two sons and a daughter – Thomas born in 1968, William in 1969 and Annabel in 1972.
However, in 1989 their younger son died in tragic circumstances.
While home from his studies at Bristol Poly, William had asked to borrow his parents’ car and pick up the weekend papers.
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However, a few hours later he still hadn’t arrived home. When there was a knock at the door and Mary answered to find a policeman standing there she ‘just knew’ something terrible had happened.
William had been killed while his sister, who had been a passenger in the car, survived.
‘He just looked so beautiful and so lovely. His cold little face,’ she recalled of viewing his body at a local hospital.
Speaking to British Vogue on the eve of her 90th birthday, Mary reflected on time that’s now passed since her son died.
‘How many years is that then? Is it 30-something?’ she questioned aloud.
‘It’s absolutely amazing in my 90th year to think that William died all that time ago. If he walked in that door over there, I would say: “Where have you been?’ It wouldn’t surprise me at all.”
‘You know we were so lucky to have him,’ she continued. ‘He brought us such joy. I feel for people who have lost their child in a skiing accident or when they don’t know where they died. We got to be a family unit [right up until] those few hours before he died.’
Mary went on to speak about how ‘every family has disasters’ and that ‘this was our tragedy’.
Explaining how they were ‘fortunate to have him for 19 years’, Mary said the family still makes sure to speak about William, even with nephews he never met too.
Speaking about how she coped following her son’s death, Mary said ‘the great outdoors, being busy and getting on with things’ helped, but that she had to fight the urge to ‘stay and suffer’.
In 2016 Mary left audiences in tears when she took her grandchildren to visit William’s grave during an episode of her programme Mary Berry’s Easter Feast.
Exploring the history and traditions of Easter, she confessed the Christian holiday fills her with pangs of bereavement.
‘For our family, it’s also the time of sadness when we remember the loss of our son, William, who died 27 years ago, when he was just 19 years old,’ she said.
She went to her son’s grave with her husband, daughter and three grandchildren, with many tuning in saying they’d been left crying watching the emotional scenes.
See the full feature in the April issue of British Vogue, available via digital download and on newsstands from Tuesday 25th March
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