When autumn comes

You know when late summer has arrived because conkers are starting to form on the horse chestnuts, your eagerness to get the kids back to school has reached fever pitch, and another season of The Great British Bake Off (BBC1, Wednesdays) has begun.

If it feels like there has never, ever been a time when GBBO wasn’t on, this is because there hasn’t. Here are some key facts about our favourite telly comfort blanket you won’t find on Wikipedia.

1. Mary Berry has barely aged at all since the show’s first edition was broadcast in 1946 immediately after Muffin the Mule. Mary was 11 at the time and was chosen for her cut-glass vowels, her English rose complexion and her sweet nature, designed to counterpoint the earthy manner of her rough-diamond co-presenter Stanley Holloway.

2. Each series only lasted two episodes in those days because the amount of edible stuff you can make on rationed sugar and powdered egg is very limited.