Nancy Birtwhistle

Birtwhistle won the Great British Bake Off in 2014, at sixty, having spent her working life managing a general practice in Lincolnshire. She did not then become a baking celebrity. She wrote about cleaning instead: Clean and Green sets out household routines built on bicarbonate, vinegar, lemon and soap rather than the plastic bottles under the sink, on grounds of cost as much as chemistry. The books read like a competent grandmother explaining something, which is more or less what they are.