Bake Off favourite Nadiya Hussain's witty one-liners and captivating smile may overturn more prejudiced perceptions of women who wear the hijab
Dipali Patel, 39, who lives next to Mrs Hussain’s family home in the Bedfordshire town, said: “I remember her when she was a schoolgirl and used to bring me the cakes she made for me to taste. Her carrot cake was lovely. And look at her now. On TV!
“She is such a lovely girl and we are all so proud of her.”
But this is more than small-town pride in a local girl made good. There is a palpable sense of relief in Luton, particularly among its Muslim community, that one of their own is being talked about without negative connotations.
The town has a large migrant population, with thousands of families from the Asian subcontinent having made their home here since the 1950s. In Bury Park, close to where Mrs Hussain, 30, was brought up, Hindus and Muslims, Indians, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis, have settled and set up thriving businesses, living, eating, working and praying side by side.
On Dunstable Road, shops selling brightly coloured saris and huge bags of rice sit alongside window displays piled high with the sweet fried cakes and almond biscuits popular in many Asian homes.
But in recent years this very modern British melting pot has been tainted by the spectre of Islamic extremism.
It reached a particularly low point in March 2009, when a small group of Islamist fanatics captured the headlines by heckling soldiers of the 2nd Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment who were parading through the town after a tour of duty in Iraq.
For many in Luton, watching Mrs Hussain wear the hijab, the traditional headscarf, while baking a moreish salted caramel and chocolate tart or an dazzlingly inventive fizzy pop cheesecake and knowing those images have been broadcast into homes up and down the country has come as a soothing balm on a particularly nasty wound.
As Mrs Hussain said in an interview with the Radio Times last week: “Just because I’m not a stereotypical British person, it doesn’t mean I am not into bunting, cake and tea. I’m just as British as anyone else, and I hope I have proved that.”
Her success in making it to Wednesday’s final of Bake Off has delighted young Luton Muslims, girls such as Mo, an 18-year-old art student at the University of Bedfordshire who also wears the hijab and, like Mrs Hussain, is of Bangladeshi origin.
Drinking latte in a Starbucks close to her art department, Mo told the Sunday Telegraph: “Society does judge us from what we are wearing. People look at me and perhaps can’t imagine that I study art. Even I was a bit shocked to see Nadiya on the programme, because people from our culture don’t do much cake baking.”
Mrs Hussain, who now lives in Leeds with her husband Abdal, a technical manager, and their young children, was born in Luton, the daughter of migrants who came to Britain seeking a better life. The family, like many migrants before and since, set great store on their children’s education and young Nadiya was encouraged to do well at Challney High School for Girls, a short walk from her home.
Here former teachers described her as an attentive and dedicated pupil, who first discovered the joys of baking under the watchful eye of her cookery teacher Jean Marshall.
Mrs Hussain later spoke of how she frequently wondered why her father only served ice cream as a dessert at his restaurant, desserts not featuring widely in Bangladeshi cuisine and the family not owning an oven at home, and Mrs Marshall encouraged her to try her hand at traditional British cakes, pastries and puddings.
She brought her results home and was soon baking there as well, delighting her family, including her brother and sisters.
Mrs Patel said: “Baking was her hobby from when she was at school. She made all sorts of cakes; chocolate, sponge, strawberry, carrot, and they were delicious. Her family loved it.”
Jaswir Singh, 58, who runs a chain of bakeries called The Cake Box, and has his flagship store in Bury Park’s bustling thoroughfare, explained that Nadiya’s newly acquired baking skills would have stood her out among other children of Asian origin.
“It’s lovely she’s grown up to do this very British thing because cake baking has not traditionally been part of the cooking culture of the subcontinent, even though it’s popular now with Indians in Britain,” he said. “It would not have been easy for her at first. It wasn’t for me.
“When I came here as a kid in 1964 I had to make a cake at school. Everybody else’s mum knew how to make a cake, but my mum didn’t so she couldn’t show me. The next day at school all the other kids found it really funny. But now I run a cake shop and Nadiya is in the Bake Off final.”
After leaving Challney High School Nadiya went on to Luton Sixth Form College, and in 2003 gained her A levels in in English language, psychology and religious studies.
Paul Croston, Nadiya’s English language teacher, said: “She hasn’t changed much. I remember her as incredibly polite, friendly and well-mannered exactly the right person to entrust to creating something you are going to eat.”
Mrs Hussain’s expressive nature – her tears, her beaming smile, her jokes, her frowns of concentration - has given viewers a glimpse of the pressure all the Bake Off contestants are under throughout the series.
Co-presenter Sue Perkins told the Henley Literary Festival on Friday evening: “They’re constantly watched, they’re scrutinised. It would take a very hard-hearted person to see a civilian come into that stressful environment and not want to make sure they’re okay.”
Finishing off a pastry before heading back to class, Mo said she hoped Mrs Hussain would win the final, but that even if she didn’t she had already won a bigger battle.
“It’s great that you’re starting to see more Muslim people who like me on TV, doing normal things instead of just when its bad news,” she said. “And I love the fact she presents a different image of Luton from the negative ones people usually think of.”