KELBROOK: Lecturer to star in ‘Come Dine With Me’

Sue Hartley (47), who teaches Child, Health and Social Care at Nelson and Colne College, bagged a spot on the show where contestants take turns to host a dinner party and rate each other’s nights.

For the last five years, Sue has run a weekly cookery class at St Catherine’s Church Hall for male pensioners.

She said one of the students’ daughters had applied but was too nervous to carry it through.

Sue said: “I absolutely love the show and said she could put the producers in touch with me instead. I never thought I would actually get on.”

To her surprise, the programme’s producer rang at the beginning of August.

Sue was asked about her food tastes and who her dream and nightmare dinner guests would be.

She also told the producer how she had previously read Tarot cards for a living and was interested in all things spiritual.

After being whittled down to the final 20, the contestants were filmed in their homes to see how they would come across on camera.

Sue’s Yorkshire Terrier Spikey proved a big hit with the crew, as did the views from her cottage kitchen window in Main Street.

Sue said: “I couldn’t believe it when they said I’d made it through.”

Sue was joined on the show by Mayoress of Padiham and magistrate Carol Stinton and two men from Darwen and Oswaldtwistle, where the last night ended in a hot tub.

The group are sworn to secrecy over who won the £1,000 cash prize but still have no idea how each was rated.

After a perfect trial run with family and friends, Sue was feeling confident about her chicken and bacon Caesar salad starter, moussaka parcels main course and a dessert of chocolate and orange gooey sponge.

But things did not go as well on the day of filming.

Sue said: “I was making the salad dressing and all of a sudden I realised it had curdled. It looked like a bowl of baby sick.

“Of course the camera was zoomed right it on it as I scooped it into the bin.

“The second attempt curdled too, it must have been the heat of the kitchen with all the crew and strong lights.

“The pastry for the moussaka parcels was stodgy and horrible and I forgot to turn down the oven and burned the roasted vegetables.”

Sue was also filmed performing Reiki on a friend and cleansing the kitchen of negative energy by burning white sage, which left the room full of smoke.

Despite the mishaps, Sue said she had a brilliant week.

“We had such a laugh and the crew were fantastic.

“We’ve said we’ll all go out for a meal together but that may all change when we hear what everyone said about each other.”

The East Lancashire episode is to be shown in November.