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‘I’m a typical teenager, who happens to look different’
Xanthe Clay talks to Junior Bake Off star Nikki Lilly Christou about life online and cooking for Jeremy Corbyn
In many ways, Nikki Lilly Christou is just like any other 14-year-old. She loves make-up, Japanese food and clothes, bickers with her siblings and worries about exams. But she’s also an accomplished baker – the winner of Junior Bake Off in 2016, no less – and a vlogger with nearly half a million YouTube followers, and interviews with the likes of Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn and Gary Lineker under her belt. Last month a documentary about her, called My Life: Born to Vlog won the Grand Prix Japan Prize.
It’s the vlogging, or video blogging, that is most remarkable, as Nikki has arteriovenous malformation (AVM), a condition that has caused the right side of her face to swell, particularly around her eye. Putting herself out there on social media shows astonishing bravery, in an age when airbrushed “perfection” is prevalent.
Nikki is a supporter of Changing Faces, one of the charities backed by this year’s Telegraph Christmas Appeal. The charity provides support and advice for the estimated 1.3 million children, young people and adults in the UK who have significant visible differences, and campaigns for wider acceptance, giving those affected a chance to lead the lives they want.
For all those videos, and the many positive comments she receives online (her parents Tanya and George monitor all comments), Nikki still lacks confidence, she admitted when I went to meet her at her north London home. “I’ll pretend I’m scratching my head to cover my eye when I am walking past kids or someone who is staring at me.”
Her voice quivered fractionally and she hugged her knees more tightly as she explained: “I shouldn’t have to do that. It is very hard when kids are so under-educated about people looking different. So what Changing Faces is trying to do is put a piece about people with facial differences on the PSHE [personal, social, health and economic education] curriculum.”
Facial swelling is only one of Nikki’s challenges. Her other symptoms include pain and nosebleeds so severe that blood streams from her mouth and tearducts. You never get used to this, she told me, and “every one is scary”. This summer she was so unwell that she was put into an eight-day induced coma.
Nikki was first diagnosed at six, and had her first of 37 major operations a month after her seventh birthday. She also had to give up strenuous activities. “She was basically housebound,” recalls her father George Christou, a menswear importer. Nikki started vlogging when she was eight, and he and her mum agreed to let her post the videos on YouTube (with the comments turned off) as a way to deal with the isolation. It was, Christou explained, “about bringing the outside in”.
She does all her own filming and editing,
Sift the flour into a large bowl and stir in the sugar and salt. Add the butter and rub into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Mix the buttermilk, milk and rosewater together.
Make a well in the flour and pour in the mixture a little at a time, mixing with a knife. Add the chopped pistachios and gather the mix with your hands to form a dough.
Turn on to a floured surface. Flatten the dough and fold it over two or three times. Pat into a round about 4cm high. Use a round cutter dipped in flour to cut out the scones.
Place on a baking sheet and glaze the tops with beaten egg. Bake for about 15 minutes until golden and well risen. producing impressively professional videos, some detailing her condition in a matter-of-fact way, but many about usual teenage preoccupations including make-up and arguing with her brother Alex and sister Tasha. “I wanted to show while I’m not your typical teenager, I also am your typical teenager. I’m a 14-year-old who looks different, but I also wear make-up, I get stressed at school – the usual things.”
She took up baking, as “a way of dealing with my condition. It was escapism,” she explained while I gobbled up two slices of her fudgy coconut and chocolate banana cake. “If I am low or feeling anxious I’ll turn to baking.” Winning Junior Bake Off was “a dream come true” although these days she struggles to find much time for cooking, as she is starting her GCSEs.
Scones are still a favourite: she took them with her to interview Corbyn, who was “more chilled than Theresa May” and brought blackberry jam to go with them. She talks like a professional about the challenges of croissants and getting pastry right: “When you get your head around pastry it’s not that hard – just butter, flour, water. It’s knowing the right techniques.”
Nikki is a far more experienced interviewer than I am. If she were in my shoes, what would she ask herself?
“I’d ask about my condition and how it makes me feel. I always prefer it when people talk to me, rather than just stare.
“Yes, I have a visible difference and I am not perceived as perfect, but why do we have to be perfect – why blend in when you can stand out?”
Serve warm or at room temperature with whipped cream flavoured with a few drops of vanilla extract and jam.
For more information about Changing Faces, see changingfaces. org.uk. To make a donation to this year’s Telegraph Christmas Appeal, see the panel below