Mary Berry is to receive the Freedom of the City of Bath at a civic ceremony on 7th June in Bath Abbey, serenaded by the 70 members of Bath’s famous Male Choir.
They will sing a special arrangement of ‘If we knew you were comin’ – we’d have baked a cake.’
Bath Male Choir hit the headlines when they reached the final rounds of the BBC Last Choir Standing series. They are the guest choir at the ceremony which sees the traditional annual mayor-making handover.
The ceremony starts at 11.00am with VIPs and civic guests parading around the city before entering the main doors of the majestic Abbey which will be packed to capacity with 1000 local people in the audience.
Admission is free and the doors open at 10.30am for the hour long ceremony which starts at 11.00am.
Mary Berry is only the second woman in history to receive this honour. She trained at The Cordon Bleu in Paris and Bath School of Home Economics. In the swinging ’60s she became the cookery editor of Housewife magazine, followed by Ideal Home magazine.
Her father, Alleyne William Steward Berry served as Mayor in 1952 and he was closely involved in establishing the University of Bath.
Mary will join a very select group who have been given Freedom of the City of Bath including Horatio Lord Nelson; Winston Churchill; Haile Selassie; Yehudi Menuhin and more recently Olympic Gold medalists Amy Williams and Jason Gardener.
The current Mayor of Bath Cllr Malcom Lees announced the honour last November when Mary switched on the Bath Christmas Lights.
Bath Male Choir founder conductor Grenville adjusted some of the words for the special performance and Cardiff-based Male Choir leader Alwyn Humphreys arranged the music. The song includes some of Mary’s well knows TV phrases;
“Cos ….. we … knew you were comin’ we have learnt a tune
special tune – seventh of June
cos We knew you were comin’ we have learnt a tune
just for-you – just for you – just for you
We are proud of where you’ve come from
when we’re baking cakes at home
If the recipe’s ambitious
but the cake is SO DELICIOUS
then we’ll eat it on our own!!
We are proud of where you’ve come from
when we’re baking cakes at home
If the recipe’s forgotten
and we’ve got a soggy bottom
then we’ll call you on the phone!”
Grenville said: “This is another exciting year for Bath Male Choir as will be the first ever UK Male Choir to tour Japan in November visiting Kyoto and Tokyo.
“It is always a pleasure to perform in Bath Abbey and we will have a full choir of over 70 voices singing on Saturday 7th June.”