The Great British Bake Off really only takes on the flavour of a reality competition when the viewers become involved: the show is incredibly popular, and like winning Bachelor couples who have to keep their budding relationships off the grid until the show actually airs, contestants on The Great British Bake Off can’t let anyone outside a tiny circle of friends and family know that they were chosen for the show, let alone how they fared. “It's quite difficult — we had to keep it a massive secret. It's so popular in the UK — it's like a religion, and if anyone finds out that you're on it, then the press will jump onto it,” says Collison. “So you have to be really secretive, which is very hard when you're young. My parents knew, a very few of my friends knew, and my teachers at school knew because they had to know, but that was it…My teachers pretended I had glandular fever. They were like, ‘It's fine, go home and practise.’ So I got loads of messages like ‘Get well soon, Martha! Hope you're okay!’ and I was just home surrounded by doughnuts.”