So we’d been thinking for a while about the possibility of inviting a patron to join the ranks of Free Cakes for Kids Hackney. We’d mulled a fair few names over and, as much as we like his black banana loaf cake, someone like Nigel Slater just didn’t seem to fit the bill.

Then, in a fleeting moment of genius, it came to us… Natalie Coleman.

We’d most definitely been on Team Natalie during the 2013 series of MasterChef. We loved her no-nonsense approach and how down-to-earth she seemed via the medium of television. And we also knew that Natalie was from Hackney. Born on the council estate where her much-loved Grandad still lives, she is the self-billed “girl from Hackney that done good.” We knew that she’d get what we were about and we knew that she already gave back to the community via cooking workshops for local kids. On paper she was perfect. So our people we did a little chatting with her people and Natalie only went and said YES! Yes, she’d be our patron, and yes, she’d come and do a demo at our fundraiser. A-mazeballs!

And guess what? She’s as no-nonsense and down-to-earth in real life as she comes across on the telly. It was an absolute pleasure to have her at our fundraiser. She came and bought cookbooks, chatted with everyone, did an awesome demo involving as many kids in the audience as possible, and we even had to stop her doing her own washing up. Diva she is not. She’s just an all round nice girl, just as we’d hoped from our patron. And she’s already been distributing our leaflets and telling organisations that work with kids in the borough about what we do in order to generate more referrals for us. Like we said: top girl is ‘our’ Nat!

The good news is that if you’re also Natalie fans then you’re in luck because she’s appearing at quite a few food festivals over the summer so you might just be able to catch her in all her glory sometime soon, plus she’s got her first solo cookbook coming out in the autumn (whoop!). And yes, we’ll definitely be roping her in to do more stuff with us in the future (we’ve got her mobile number; she can’t get away!), so watch this space, won’t you? And do not worry, whilst we are proud as punch to have a patron, and whilst we now produce an annual report with accounts and all that grown up stuff, we are not getting too big for our boots. We’re still just little old FCFK Hackney and getting birthday cakes to kids who would otherwise go without will always be our primary concern. We also do our own washing up!