It was more nerve-wracking than going to war
Army officer turned baking champion Sophie Faldo felt more nerves on television than in a war zone, she tells Rosa Silverman
Abox of Cadbury chocolate fingers sits on Sophie Faldo’s coffee table. Shopbought biscuits? “It’s only because we had a friend over,” she sighs. “I can’t ever be seen to be buying a cake in a supermarket now, can I?” She can’t, because Faldo, 33, was this week crowned the winner of the 2017 Great British Bake Off, the surprise ratings juggernaut that has just finished its eighth series.
Having controversially moved to Channel 4 this year from the BBC, the new iteration was always destined to be received warily by fans. But producers took the canny decision not to meddle with the recipe, and although some viewers drifted away, the figures remained healthy, with an average audience of nine million tuning in every week.
Not that the competitive bakers whose doughs, crusts and crème pâtissèries have formed the basis of the drama over the past 10 weeks let this deter them from their pursuit of the winner’s plate.
“[The show] was under a lot of scrutiny and we were all very aware of that,” says Faldo. “It was a shame because I think there was potentially more negativity going into this one than previous series. But we tried not to think about that and just focus on what we could achieve.”
In Faldo’s case, that seems to be pretty much everything she turns her hand to. The former Army officer and one-time ballet dancer is a martial arts, skiing and cycling enthusiast who, by the way, is also training to be a stuntwoman.
What can’t she do? “Actually I’m terrible at running. And playing the violin,” she offers.
We are speaking in the flat she shares in Thames Ditton, Surrey, with her boyfriend David Slattery, a chef, who sits between us on the sofa. Both are jolly and fun, although Bake Off viewers did not always see this side of Faldo. Instead, it was her rival, 20-year-old Liam Charles, who stole viewers’ hearts with his cheeky-chappy cheerfulness and there was some consternation when he exited the tent at the quarter-final stage, with fans declaring him “the real winner”.
Faldo’s on-screen persona did not earn her quite the same level of adulation and some viewers took to social media to call her “emotionless” and “vanilla” – although tabloid newspaper reports that she had a “steamy” fling with a cyclist 12 years her junior on a charity bike ride last year, before meeting Slattery, would suggest otherwise.
“There’s a good reason why people love [Liam],” she says. “His personality comes across on screen and I don’t think mine did. I think I was very subdued because I was just so focused on what I was doing and didn’t really think about how I was going to look.
“I’m hoping now, that with things I go on to do, I can be a bit more relaxed and hopefully my personality will shine through a little bit more.”
Away from the tent, at any rate, it’s hard not to like Faldo. Fellow finalist Steven Carter-bailey – the bookies’ favourite – clearly thought so, too. The pair forged such a bond on the show that some viewers became convinced they must be an item.
“They had a name for you both,” says Slattery. “Stophie!”
‘There’s a good reason why people love Liam – his persona comes across on screen’
‘I feel bad for Prue. It probably ruined her holiday’
“I found it quite funny,” laughs Faldo. “I’ve replied to a couple of people on Twitter and just gone, ‘I don’t think I’m his type’.”
She and Carter-bailey have remained friends since filming finished in July, and have discussed a trip to Scandinavia next year. Yet their Bake Off dream very nearly didn’t happen. Both contestants missed the deadline for applications and Faldo was about to give up on the idea when the cut-off point was extended.
So what prompts a former lieutenant, with a 2010 tour of Afghanistan under her belt, to apply for a TV show that prizes the speedpiping of icing on to ginger biscuits?
“It was 2013, I’d left the Army, it was my housemate’s birthday and I just thought it would be nice to make her a cake,” says Faldo. “I don’t do things by halves, so it was a twotier fondant decorated thing and I found that quite fun, so was keen to improve my skills.”
Two wedding cake commissions later, and a few weeks of baking every day while working in an Alpine ski chalet, and Faldo was ready to try her luck on national television.
The contrast with her tour of duty in Helmand, during which she was coordinating surveillance assets (“there were some very bad days and we lost people”), surely could not have been starker?
“Actually, it’s very similar,” says Faldo. “You get that same rush of adrenalin, the same nerves and you are thinking about different jobs you’ve got on at the same time; you’ve got to organise the logistics in your head as you’re going along, and you’re problem-solving if things are going wrong.
“I was probably more nervous in the tent. There were times during the first judging when my heart was pounding.”
Yet Faldo seemed unflappable, even when she won. Even judge Paul Hollywood confessed he’d wiped away a tear.
“I think everyone was expecting me to break down in floods,” says Faldo. “But I was still processing it. It’s a very different feeling now everybody’s watched it – amazing but still surreal.
“Everything still seems relatively normal when I’m in the house, but in the outside world things have changed a bit for me. That hasn’t quite hit home yet.”
Already, however, she has seen the dark side of fame. There have been the usual poisonous comments online, which she has taken in her stride (“I like to give as good as I get on Twitter”) and a tabloid story claiming she was under investigation for benefit fraud, having supposedly wrongly claimed a single person’s allowance.
Faldo has denied the allegation. Where did the story come from, then? “As
you know, it’s categorically untrue, but I have suspicions,” she says. “There was certainly a breach, let’s just put it that way, and that was very disappointing. I couldn’t say anything more without making official allegations. I think part of the story came from someone I had known, or know, and the other half probably came from somebody who shouldn’t be leaking information. I can only guess at what the motivation was.”
It wasn’t the only unwanted headline the show attracted. Greatest of all the Great British bloopers came from new judge Prue Leith, who stepped into the shoes of Mary Berry. Leith committed the cardinal
Bake Off sin of tweeting the winner’s name on Tuesday morning, hours before the final was broadcast – later saying she was in Bhutan and got the time zones mixed up. That must have spoiled things?
“Certainly not for me,” insists Faldo. “I have spoken to Prue and I know she’s devastated, but it was quite funny in a way. Love [Productions, the show’s creators] were probably a little bit more concerned about it, because we’d spent so much effort and time making sure the secret didn’t get out. But I don’t think it was as horrendous as maybe Prue thinks it is, so no hard feelings. I feel really bad for her. It probably ruined her holiday.”
So what next for Faldo? Surely once you’ve pulled off your ownrecipe honey custard, blackberry jelly, lemon curd and lavender mousse on primetime TV, the world’s your oyster? Or at least the big-money television and book deals that are the winner’s due? “I would love to maybe do something in television a little bit further down the line, but that hasn’t taken any shape at the moment, so we’ll see,” she says.
I can’t help but think that if she lets the real Sophie shine through – the one who chats away amicably, curled up on the sofa with a packet of shop-bought biscuits in front of her – she’ll be just fine.