‘WRITING MY TRUTH SET ME FREE’
A candid Nadiya Hussain talks family and life beyond Bake Off
As I take the train to London to meet Nadiya Hussain, I highlight a passage in her new memoir, Finding My Voice, where she describes her kitchen. It’s a portrait of a much-loved room, with piles of mismatched cooking pots that her children will inherit, spice racks covering walls, a painting of a rice field, which reminds her of a ‘distant home’, and windows looking out on to her garden, so that she can watch her children outside with their chickens. This, she writes, is home and where she feels safe. It’s a contrast to some of the location kitchens she works in, which often have ‘harsh’ lighting and an ‘eerily cold’ atmosphere.
The warmth of this description stays with me, since the kitchen she describes is determinedly normal. And as my train shudders into Paddington, I think of why I watch cookery shows: not for their recipes so much as the way they allow me to lust after a different life, one of huge zinc surfaces, matching copper pots and natty gadgets for squeezing lemons. My life – real life – is much messier, with an overflowing kitchen drawer full of crap and mismatched pans with wonky handles. And while Nadiya could, I’m sure, easily justify buying herself one of those glossy kitchens, the home she describes is a place most of us would find familiar.
I recall that description later as I watch Nadiya, cameras trained on her as she poses for pictures in a huge, unattainably beautiful house for our shoot. She poses through outfit changes, that bright, wise smile dazzling beneath her hijab. This is Nadiya the professional woman – polished, poised – but after the shoot I find her in an upstairs bedroom, looking tiny in a scarlet jumpsuit.
‘I’m so sorry, but I’m freezing. I’m always cold,’ she says apologetically as she stifles a yawn. ‘I’ve also been up since very, very early this morning.’ When I ask her if she enjoys these shoots, she pauses for a moment. ‘When I walk on to a location, I realise my world is a bit mad,’ she says. ‘But this is the job I love, which has given me so many opportunities, so I’m entirely grateful. But I know there’s always another life with my family, with my kids, where real life happens.’
That real life is in Milton Keynes, where her husband, Abdal (‘the most wonderful man in the world’), and her children, Musa, 13, Dawud, 12, and Maryam, nine, will later be making supper for her return. All her children cook, and regularly make supper or prepare their own packed lunches. Abdal is an IT manager, but Nadiya’s hazy about the details of his job. ‘When I can’t sleep, he tells me about it and I fall asleep immediately,’ she laughs, explaining that they manage their work around family. ‘The fact we do it alone, without childcare, is important to us.’ They don’t have a cleaner, either, although with a column in The Times, presenting duties with the BBC, numerous cookbook deals and a series of YA novels called
The Amir Sisters, she could presumably afford it. ‘Instead, we have a Sunday morning playlist to get up to at 7am and clean the house as a family. I don’t want anyone else to scrub my toilet. It’s definitely a conscious decision to keep things real.’
It’s an admirable resolution for someone who has been named one of the 500 most influential people in the UK by Debrett’s, and someone so recognisable that nights out with the family have been swapped for evenings at home with board games and a movie.
Nadiya’s life sounds happy, so her decision to bare her soul in Finding My Voice is courageous; she’s written with unflinching honesty about her upbringing in Luton, from sibling rivalry and years of racist abuse to the anger she felt towards her parents for preventing her from applying to university. She also recalls the early years after her arranged marriage in Bangladesh, plus the difficulties she faced as a young mum with mental health issues. This is no banal celeb memoir; it’s Nadiya tackling her life – the light as well as dark – head on. Near the end of her autobiography, she reveals, in shocking detail, the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of a relative in Bangladesh when she was just five. It’s a brave book, but then Nadiya has already broken many moulds: she’s the girl who had never been on a train alone until she
travelled to Bake Off; the Muslim woman who has forged a TV cookery career, overcoming what she calls ‘imposter syndrome’ in an industry dominated by male, Caucasian presenters; the person who has transformed the usual career trajectory, having spent eight years as a full-time mum before her career even started. It would have been easy for Nadiya to stick to cooking, to buy herself that big, glossy kitchen and continue to churn out cookbooks or present yet another cookery show.
‘Writing openly and honestly felt important for this moment in my life now. I am so much more than the first Muslim woman to win Bake Off, but I realised I could say something important with the platform that has given me,’ she says. As she talks about the book, it’s clear that now she’s in her mid-30s, Hussain is moving up a gear, defiantly reaching that moment in her career when she can take control and realise the power she can wield. She nods in agreement. ‘I didn’t want to go on hiding from things that had gone on in my life, I suppose. I realised what I had to say was so much bigger than the food and the cooking.’
If Nadiya was sprung into the spotlight, writing the memoir at this point in her life and career feels like an intentional effort to take control of her own story. ‘Writing about my background and, of course, the abuse, was a huge thing for me. I went from only having spoken with my husband about it, to telling the world. I had to keep asking myself, “Why are you doing this?” But I know why, because since sharing it, I’ve made peace with it.’
I suggest writing was a way to claim power over the abuse, in particular, which might have otherwise festered as a frightening secret. ‘Oh absolutely. People can ask me about it openly, because I have said it now; there’s nothing left to hide.’ Her sons have read her story, and it’s opened conversations with them about respect, consent, how to be a brother, husband, man. ‘I hope it will open discussions in other families, too, where sex abuse might be considered shameful. This is my truth, and writing about it has set me free.’
This willingness to reveal her frailties is what makes Nadiya a compelling public figure. She’s a devoted mother, but it’s also refreshing to hear a woman in the public eye talking openly about the challenges of maternal life. ‘Look, my kids are my world; they are the things that make me happiest. But in a way, motherhood has been the hardest thing I’ve done. It’s only when you bring them into the world, you realise keeping them alive is massive. That can be completely overwhelming.’ She tells me about the darkness she felt after the birth of her daughter. ‘I had this beautiful daughter, but I went to the doctor as I thought, “I shouldn’t be feeling this negative and sad.” But I hadn’t appreciated how much raising young children changes you.’
Her Bake Off win came when she was 30, after Abdal persuaded her to enter following a few difficult years early in their marriage. ‘It hadn’t been easy. We had children young, and a lot of debt. We were also dealing with my mental health issues.’
After she won, Nadiya’s career took off, but I’m curious how such a radical role reversal changed her marriage. ‘Learning to let go was hard. My kids had been my absolute everything, from organising all their homework to after-school clubs and Arabic lessons. I held everything tight and I had to let go of that to do my work, as I am now away regularly. But we wanted to make it work together. We were determined to work around each other, so we could both be there for the family and our marriage.’ She pauses for a moment. ‘My husband is an incredible, amazing man, and I wish there where more men like him.’
Nadiya softens when she mentions Abdal. He’s the beacon she returns to in conversation. Since theirs was an arranged marriage, was it luck that made them click? She’d only met him once before their wedding day. Did she instantly know he was the one? She shakes her head. ‘It wasn’t about an emotional bond, my marriage, when it happened, but was very much about looking for and wanting a husband. We did not have an immediate connection. And it wasn’t luck that made it work; we worked at it and made sure it happened.’ It’s clearly an outstanding partnership now, but she dismisses the idea that her kids should follow the same route. ‘Believe me, I’m not arranging a marriage for any of them,’ she says before describing why hers works so well. ‘We care for each other and respect each other. He gives me space to work, although at times his work takes precedence. It’s a partnership, a balance.
‘I REALISED WHAT I HAD TO SAY WAS SO MUCH BIGGER THAN THE FOOD AND THE COOKING'
And he understands my mental health, too,’ says Nadiya. ‘I can lose myself very easily in the rat race if I’m working too hard. I have two ends: one when I am so anxious I cannot stop and will do anything – mop the floors and paint the skirting boards – to prevent myself thinking, or there’s the other end of the spectrum where I cannot get out of bed, or brush my teeth, or do anything for five days at a time.’
She experienced this side a couple of weeks ago, she tells me, so Abdal took over the cooking and caring for the kids. After that, they had a day off together, going for a walk around the woods, stopping at Nadiya’s favourite cafe to eat eggs on toast and people-watch. ‘Then we went to the cinema, and later I had a long bath and read a book. It’s that simple. He made me feel myself again. He helped me stop long enough to hear my own heartbeat. Sometimes someone has to find you before you can find yourself.’
As Nadiya gets ready to leave, hugging the crew and posing patiently for selfies, I imagine her returning to that cosy, normal kitchen. I also think of how, after watching cookery programmes, I have longed for a bigger, shinier place to cook, as if that will somehow make my life better. And I now realise how empty that seems, and what a good example Nadiya sets about living a good life. ‘I’m not trying to change the world,’ she had told me earlier. ‘A lot of living well just comes down to being nice to each other.’ Her words remain with me as I watch her returning to her absolutely normal, absolutely exceptional life.