Prue Leith admits she drowned a bag of kittens when she was a child
2 October 2022, 10:23
Dame Prue Leith has admitted she drowned a bag of kittens as a child.
The Great British Bake off Judge said the act plagued her for weeks afterwards. Writing in her memoir I’ll Try Anything Once, she said her mother instructed her to kill the baby cats hours after their birth.
“My mother and I, then 11, had just drowned some kittens… and for weeks I imagined those poor dead creatures.
“Too many kittens was a frequent occurrence and there had come a day when my mother, unable to find homes for yet another litter, decided to drown the latest batch.
“My protests were met with a firm ‘darling, it has to be done. They are only a few hours old. They will hardly know it’s happening.”
She said the helpless animals “fought like the devil for life.”
“I held the bag under the water until the last kitten had stopped mewing,” she said.
