'I was entirely comfortable with risk' – Dame Kate Bingham

The former Vaccine Taskforce chair on pandemic preparedness, dementia and jamming

- By Jane Wheatley

Dame Kate Bingham hands over her phone to show me a photograph of mushrooms. Not any old mushrooms, but porcini, picked in woodland near her home, a restored watermill in the Welsh Marches. It's a huge haul, possibly her best yet, she says. 'I cook them in butter, shallots and garlic -off-the-charts delicious served with grouse breast. Some not so beautiful ones I dry in the Aga and pot up to make tea.'

The date on the photo is September 5, 2020, a Saturday, six months into the Covid-19 pandemic; in between picking through her porcini, she was running online meetings with colleagues on the Government's Vaccine Taskforce (VTF). Since her appointment as its chair in May that year, the race had been on to come up with vaccines in response to the virus and every day was a work day; phone calls would often be made at night as she climbed the hill behind her house.

What Dame Kate calls her 'bifurcated life' between the big skies and sheep-cropped hills of the border country and her day job, as managing partner at venture capitalists SV Health Investors, has its roots in her childhood. Her father was Tom Bingham, probably the most respected judge of the modern era who became Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales. 'Dad bought a cottage in Wales as an antidote to fast-paced London life,' she explains. "There was no indoor water, so washing up was done outside by Dad wearing an army greatcoat in cold weather. For me, London was school and the borders was play.'