Meanwhile, salaries for Dame Prue’s staff – including her PA, housekeeper, cleaner and a couple of gardeners – are her biggest outgoing, she reveals. And she’s also keen on supporting those dear to her in any way she can. “I have been dishing out some money to my kids and my goddaughter while I’m alive,” she says, “because it’s nice to see them spend it, and [to] help with school fees or buying a house. My plan is to keep doing that so that there won’t be any when I die.”
Dame Prue’s frankness in talking about her wealth is refreshing, and she devotes several pages in her new book to the importance of planning for one’s financial legacy. She says she is getting her affairs in order so that she doesn’t leave any nasty surprises behind her when she goes – “Though I need to plan carefully, as my mother lived to 97, so I’ll probably pass 100.”
As for the topic of inheritance tax, Dame Prue labels it “wicked”. “Like most people who have made money, I think, ‘For God’s sake, I have already paid tax on that money I earned’ – 45 per cent tax, which is quite a lot. So I really don’t want to be taxed another 40 per cent again when I die,” she says. “I do understand the government has to get their money from somewhere, and I think it’s fair that rich people should pay more. But paying tax twice sucks.”
Although this subject briefly wipes the smile from Dame Prue’s face, she positively beams when husband Playfair pops into the bedroom to say hello and show me the present he has bought for her recent birthday: a Maine coon cat that is currently tiny with cute fluffy ears but which will grow to weigh about 5kg and reach 36cm in length. “Her name is Sophie, which is short for Sophisticat,” says Dame Prue. “She’s the prettiest thing ever. But she’s an absolute escape artist – you open the door a crack and she’s through it like a shot.”
She gives Playfair instructions to put Sophie in her office during The Telegraph’s photo shoot, punctuating the handful of sentences with multiple “darlings”. From watching this short interaction between the couple, it’s clear they are utterly besotted with each other.
Dame Prue met Playfair when she was 70 and he was 64 – introduced by mutual friends at a dinner party – having lost her first husband, Kruger, who was 20 years her senior, in 2002. She hated her eight years alone – “Widowhood sucks” – and couldn’t believe her good fortune in falling in love again.