Bill's Bakery
144/256 Finney Lane

Margaret's Memories of Life at the Bakers and Shop

"The bakery I remember as being a lot bigger than the more recent photos show. Inside there were two ovens that were quite big, at least five or six feet deep and probably the same wide, one on top of the other with cast iron doors. When making bread, the dough was made in a huge thing, almost like a cement mixer. Two men would lift it up and scrape the dough out onto big wooden tables we had in the bakery. One of my jobs was to adhere to a standard weight. Everything was traditionally weighed on a two-pound scale. It had big cast iron weights, some the shape of a block with a handle, some were brass weights with a waisted shape, and I really wanted to inherit them, but I don’t know what happened to them. All the yeast was fresh yeast, and it came in big blocks about the size of two one pound packs of butter put together and we’d sell it to home bakers too. One of the shop assistants used to break a bit off and eat it. It was called DCL Yeast and came in waxed paper with blue writing on it.

"You would use a cutter blade with a wooden handle to cut bits off, weigh it and put into a machine, that rolled it into a sausage shape, then dropped it into a tin. If the weight wasn’t right, you added or took off a bit of dough. It became quite easy to judge it. The loaves went into tins, like a typical size you see in a family kitchen, and they would be stacked on a tabletop with a cloth over to prove. Then they went into the oven using paddles. These were like a shovel, but with a flat surface, about two feet long and a foot wide. One was metal and one was wood. There was a skill in loading the ovens with these paddles. Dad and the apprentices would load two or three tins onto them and slide them into the oven. We made different types of bread. There was white large homemade and small white homemade, wheatmeal and a white round loaf with a slashed top. I would slash a razor through that dough, that was called a cob. A lovely one called an oven bottom because that’s where it went. They were a really soft milky bread. There was also a farl. This was a circular dome shape and with a big knife blade it was cut into four segments. It was a very high fibre loaf. A bread like a french baguette, we called a twist. Short weights we sold cheap, as they didn’t make the full weight. Hovis loaves were really nice.

"When we made bread rolls you cut the dough into smaller pieces and then, grandad, and dad would roll them by hand two at a time. Some were flattened to make barm cakes, some were made round, or long shapes for bridge rolls. They would go onto great big baking trays, two and a half feet to three feet long by two feet wide. They would go into a cabinet where there was steam rising to prove them and then they would go into the oven, again with the paddles. We made the famous floury baps with a very Scottish recipe, barmcakes, flat rolls and bridge rolls like a finger roll. Grandad, being Scottish, sometimes made buttery rolls. He was from Aberdeen, and he made them for the family. They were a cross between a lardy bread and a croissant savoury with lard, a bit of butter and salt and they were quite heavy flaky things. We made sweet breads as well. Our scones were triangle shaped and quite flat, tea cakes, hot cross buns and we had customers who all had their favourites. Every so often we made specials. For instance, if the Village Hall did hot pot suppers, we made huge, galvanised containers of it, in our ovens like school dinners. For Harvest Festivals Dad would make a huge dough wheatsheaf, like a sculpture. It would be two to three feet tall by two feet wide and we’d bake those.

"It was fun helping in the bakery, but you had to be up early, and it was hard work. When Janet and I were younger, aged about nine or ten, we’d carry in trays of cakes on beautiful plastic green trays, that were quite pretty. They were like a small tea tray, and the cakes would be arranged on there and go into the shop window. I was big for my age by the age of 11, so one of my jobs was to carry big wooden trays of bread from the bakery to shelving in the corridor behind the shop. That was hard work as these trays were two to three feet wide. Another job in my teens was I had to rake out the ovens at the weekend. They were coke fired and I had to remove the ashes. At home we had a coal fire in the house. If we wanted to get it going quickly, Dad would go to the bakery and get a shovel of red-hot coke and start it.

"We made savoury food too. The ovens were used to roast meats, ham and pork, and that would be sliced in the shop to sell loose or in sandwiches. We made meat pies. Steak and kidney, meat and potato, which I absolutely adored, and pork pies and sausage rolls. They were made doing the pastry separately. Then to make the casing we had a machine like a plunger, and it’s called blocking. You put a weighed amount of pastry into an individual tin and then pull a lever. It would be pressed into the shape inside the tin. Then you would trim the top with a knife to make it neat. Next dad or grandad would fill it with the meat. I would go along with a water brush and damp the rim of the pastry and put a lid on. We cut out different pastry shapes according to the pie. Meat and potato had a hole punched in it. Steak and kidney had a little crescent moon on top. I would do the blocking and the lids. We also made pork pies that again were absolutely delicious. Using the same process to make the pie shape and then Dad or Grandad would put the meat in. I would do the lids and then you’d have to use something like a pair of tweezers, but a bit bigger, with a serrated edge to crimp the edges, before they were cooked in the oven. Once the pork pies were cooked, I would punch a couple of holes in the pastry and pour in a meat jelly to make it moist and set around the meat.

"I remember going with Dad, and sometimes Grandad, to big cake making competitions like a commercial version of agricultural shows but for cakes. They were for commercial bakers and held in huge warehouses with rows and rows of trestle tables with white cloths on. There was a different table for each cake like cherry genoa, madeira, light/dark fruit cake. I used to love going along, as the judges would cut a slice off each cake and taste, sniff, rub it and make notes. I was fascinated. I know Grandad had entered in the past, as he was really an excellent cake maker. Whenever I made a cake for Grandad, who was a real stickler for quality, often I would make a Dundee cake. He would stare, sniff, and rub it for texture and then taste it!

"Grandad was a specialist renowned for his wedding cakes. He was a real expert. You don’t see it so much now, decorative icing. He could make cages and baskets in icing. Before a wedding cake went to a customer it would be set up in the bakery. Three tiers usually, with silk pillars and a model bride and groom on the top with decorative flowers cascading down. We made birthday cakes to order; both iced like a Christmas cake or with glace or chocolate icing. We sold all the decorations for people to do their own cakes, with bands for around cakes and Christmas decorations. We also made lots of smaller cakes. Old fashioned ones like custard tarts. One of my jobs was to fill them. The tart was made unbaked, then you poured in a jug of egg yolk and milk mixture. My job was to put the nutmeg on the top. We did tarts, jam, lemon curd, and strawberry ones in summer, with a lovely jelly glaze and a rim of cream. One lady used to buy the custard tarts because her dog liked the pastry! We did cream puffs or cream splits. These were a sweet dough with a split to fill in with cream and jam. Chocolate eclairs and also a big round shape like an eclair with a coffee icing called an elephant’s foot. Fondant fancies; little square things in beautiful frilly paper cases. They were a Victoria sponge with a jam filing but different icing colours and flavours. Lemon, pink one with strawberry juice and a chocolate one. Eccles cakes and chocolate truffles which were balls of chocolate rolled in vermicelli. Vanilla custard slice, Swiss rolls with jam and lemon curd or chocolate with vanilla filling. Cream and jam sponges. Chocolate cases with chocolate icing and a walnut on top. When we were very small Janet and I would remove the walnuts, given half the chance, I don’t know how much stock we messed up! I don’t remember the dolly blue in a muslin cloth to make the icing whiter. If there was, it would have been a special catering one, not the one for your laundry!

"We also made another sweet bread which was a plaited loaf. It was dough with sultanas, and it had icing poured all over it; delicious sliced and buttered. Our iced fingers were made in the same way. At Christmas we made Christmas cakes. When we were younger, Christmas holidays were a lot longer. Shops didn’t reopen on Boxing Day but may have stayed closed until the new year. We had queues out the front of the shop before it opened. Some would buy bread for several days. What Dad and Grandad did, was to make the bread longer keeping by adding extra fat and sugar. Funny story. We were next door to the Co-op and the butcher’s section was over a concrete fence at the back of our back yard. Bert was the manager and Jeff his assistant. They were run off their feet at Christmas and so were we. Jeff would pass me a huge parcel of bacon and sausages and my job was to get some of our bread rolls to make bacon and sausage butties to have on the hoof!

"I liked serving in the shop. You didn’t get paid, but it was still a village then, and you got to know the regulars. It was lovely when a customer wanted a selection of cakes to be put in a box for them. Mental arithmetic was critical, as it was an old-fashioned till with push down numbers, it didn’t add up for you! We sold all the cakes and bread and besides are own, some wanted Mother’s Pride, so we sold that too. There was just one gluten free loaf, even in those days, that dad made for a celiac customer. When people had not ordered enough bread or got to the shops in time on Sundays/Saturday evenings, they would come round the back asking for any bread left over or yesterday’s bread.

"If you stood in front of the shop, looking into the door, the window displays were just for cakes. The left-hand side of shop had shelving with wooden trays and loaves stacked on them, with spare ones at the back of shop until they were ready to sell. We had a counter behind another display area that also had cakes in it. We eventually got a chilled counter for cream cakes. There were two bay windows with the door in the middle. There was glass shelving on metal stands and cakes would be put on there, on these beautiful green trays, and displayed there. At right angles to the front of the shop was a marble topped counter with more display area underneath. Another counter ran parallel to the front windows with the meat slicer on and we stored cold meats there. There were shelves all around and we sold some groceries, like jams, teas and some tinned meats. Biscuits were loose in galvanised tins and they were mounted at a slight angle in a frame and sold by weight. People could buy a mixture. We also sold Ben Shaw’s lemonade, dandelion and burdock, cream soda and possibly raspberry too. Janet and I would have cream soda, in tall, fluted lager glasses, with a blob of vanilla ice cream on top and loved it. We sold cold meats loose and for sandwiches. We also bought in potted meat and salmon, in white ceramic dishes like a small soup plate. It was used in sandwiches or sold in chunks on greaseproof paper. The gollywogs on Robertsons jams you could collect for tin badges by sending off so many paper ones. Janet and I used to remove the paper one behind the labels and send them off!

"We had several ladies who worked in the shop. There was Dorothy who had a poodle called Binky, who loved the egg custards, and an older lady called Phyllis. Also, a couple of younger ladies. When we got a new shop assistant, the older ladies used to play a trick on them. If they were window dressing the glass shelves and stands in the window, they’d say there was not enough room for everything and will you go and ask Steve for a long stand. They would go to the bakery and say Mr Jagla can I have a long stand please? He’d say yes and then leave them there waiting for a long stand!! Similar joke being the fact that the weights were used to prop up displays and they would be told to go and ask for a big weight. Again, they would be stood around for a big wait!

"It was fun but hard work and impinged on socialising and I didn’t like getting up early. There was no privacy at home. We lived in the flat above and the kitchen and sitting room were downstairs. We had to share it with the shop staff for their tea breaks. It was fun to work there and be creative and eat! It was hard work, and we didn’t get out to play with friends as others would. It was an experience.
The shop was more fun and more social. I really wanted Dad and Grandad to make more of the business and market it better. I thought it would look really brilliant with some sepia tinted photos of the bakery with them in their bakery whites. It was all artisan bakery, old fashioned and done properly with no dodgy ingredients, but they weren’t keen on the idea. In fact, when the airport wanted contract work, we couldn’t do it with our limited capacity and oven space. Grandad worked in the bakery until about late morning/ lunchtime because he’d driven over from Old Trafford in Manchester, and we had several apprentices. It was a true family business.

"Janet and I both love baking. We were never taught. We just saw what was going on. I used to cook family meals quite a lot. Mum wasn’t a good cook. I was overweight at home! Mum would say she’d not had time to make tea, so get something from the shop. Ironically, I am now gluten and dairy free, so have to watch what I eat. I now make my own gluten free bread."