Interview with: Gavin Bailey

Date: 14/06/14

Location: Newcastle-Under-Lyme

Interviewer: Steve Cooling

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

It was only when I ended up in London that I developed a bagel habit. I can 

remember my first: it was a 6am plain bagel with cream cheese, having 

breakfast before bedtime. Like many, I found the 24hr Beigel Bake on Brick 

Lane to be highly convenient for the journey home from East End clubs. Later

 in my time in London a friend lived above the Bagel House in Stoke Newington,

with the smell of fresh bread ever present.

 For my last couple of years in London, though, I lived just around the corner 

from the Happening Bagel Bakery in Finsbury Park, with great bagels, challah,

 pizza, cakes galore, and posters of the Gunners on the wall. Saturday

mornings would mean buying a dozen plain and half a dozen poppy seed bagels,

 and then wandering round the corner to the all night grocery to buy ricotta

and tomatoes (and globe artichokes). 

Back in North Staffordshire, decent bagels are hard to find: certainly those 

in the supermarkets are not even close to acceptable.

I've imported some from 

Finsbury Park on occasion, just as I used to take about 12 dozen oatcakes 

(from JB oatcakes, since you ask) from Stoke to London, every few months. 

I've tried some bagels from a Manchester bakery - again, not so good - and 

know that I should go up to Prestwich or Crumpsall to try again. In lieu of

 two or three hours driving, though, I'm now making my own for special 

occasions.

 My first few attempts weren't particularly successful, being too thin and 

stringy, too tough. At the time, though, I was using an old and fairly broken

 down cooker which never heated up fully. As soon as I had a better cooker to

 use, the bagels started to come reliably on stream. I use a recipe by Rachel

 Allen I found online, and I'm told they resemble Montreal style bagels, as

 opposed to New York. They are sweet and doughy, with a crunch on the outside,

 and still pretty thin. It's a pain to have to do the boiling (in water

sweetened with molasses) before baking, and I roll them by hand so they 

aren't perfectly round or smooth. I eat them with cream cheese or ricotta,

 tomato and basil, but the children like them with just butter or butter and

 cucumber. Whatever happens, a batch of 16 are usually gone in a couple of

 days. Yum.

Proving

Boiling in molasses

Poppy seed bagels

Ingredients

Ingredients 450g/1lb strong bread flour, plus extra for dusting 2 tsp salt 7g sachet fast-acting yeast 2 tbsp clear honey 1 tbsp vegetable oil, plus extra for greasing 3 tbsp black treacle or molasses fine polenta, for sprinkling 1 free-range egg, beaten sesame seeds, sea salt, poppy seeds, or a savoury topping of your choice (optional)

Method

Preparation method Sift the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl, then add the yeast and mix well. Measure 250ml/9fl oz warm water in a measuring jug and then stir in the honey and oil. Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour the liquid in gradually, bringing the dough together with your hands. Turn the dough out onto a clean, dry and floured work surface. Start kneading the dough, stretching it away with the palm of one hand and folding it back again with the other. Knead for approximately 10 minutes, adding more flour if the dough becomes too sticky. Continue kneading until the dough is firm and elastic. Shape the dough into a large ball and place in a lightly oiled, large bowl. Turn the dough in the oil to coat. Cover with cling film or a plastic bag and put in a warm, dry place for 1–3 hours, or until the dough has doubled in size. When the dough has proved, bring a large saucepan of water to the boil and add the treacle or molasses. Cover and turn off the heat. Lightly oil two baking trays and sprinkle with polenta. Remove the dough from the bowl, then punch it down and knead it briefly. Roll it into a rough sausage shape and divide into seven equal chunks. As you work with one chunk, keep the others covered with a clean tea towel. Firmly roll out each chunk into a long, slender sausage shape. Bring the ends together, splash the ends with a tiny bit of water and squeeze them together to seal. Place on the prepared baking trays and repeat with the remaining the dough. Cover and set aside to prove for a further 10–20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 220C/425F/Gas 7. Bring the saucepan of molasses and water back to a gentle simmer. Gently drop each bagel into the water (do this in batches of no more than three at a time) and turn over after 1-2 minutes. Simmer for another 1-2 minutes, then remove the bagels from the water, and drain. Place the bagels on the prepared baking trays, spacing them widely apart. Brush the tops with the beaten egg and sprinkle with sesame seeds, sea salt, poppy seeds or a savoury topping of your choice. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, or until golden-brown, then turn them upside down for a further ten minutes to cook the bases. Transfer to a wire rack to cool before serving.

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Interview with: Freda Wallace

Date: 21/08/14

Location: Stoke

Interviewer: Steve Cooling

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

I've never made bread, well I have once it was more like rock cakes.

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Interview with: Frank Bibby

Date: 02/04/14

Location: Mow Cop

Interviewer: Steve Cooling

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

The Stone house below the chapel use to be a bakery.  I don't remember it then but I've seen the old ovens in it when I was a kid.

I remember my grandma would make her own bread, one or two loaves a day I think.

In the old days people would have baked their own bread.  They would of had an oven in the wall outside, like the wells.  You wouldn't of had an oven indoors then.

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Interview with: Ethel - OCIS cafe

Date: 17/04/14

Location: Shelton

Interviewer: Hilary Hughes

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

Oh I've made bread, when we had the strike, it was called Soda Bread, there's no yeast in that. At the time we just did it because there was no other way. Put all the ingredients ready for when I got home from work and soon after my husband would come, he would see to the tea and I'd be making the bread ready for tea. It was awful in the 70's when we had these power cuts because we never knew when it was going to go off, until some bright spark decided to do a timetable for us and then we did know. Where I was living at the time, in the flats up Tollgate at Blurton, high rise. They were owned by the company my husband worked for which was Seddons. Me mother told me the recipe, because she had a Mrs Beatons cookery book, where you take half a dozen eggs, even in the bad times, every recipe started take half a dozen or a dozen, I mean we couldn't afford anything it was all scratch, scratch, scratch. I never done it since, it wasn't white bleached flour and I do know that we soaked the ingredients, that's why I got the ingredients ready. It tasted brilliant, it did rise and if you got it just straight from the oven and you could put your butter on, it used to melt into it and the smell was fantastic. People in the flats used to say what a gorgeous smell in this flat, I ended up making it for residents as well. It was a community those flats, everybody did everything for everybody.

I was brought up on a farm, the table laden with bread. The smell absolutely fabulous, it was warm, doughy and welcoming. You can smell it when you walk past the factories today, Allied Bakeries on the way to 'Castle. We used to get the butter from the dairy, Uncle Alf would be churning it.

Windmills and Worsten Mill I used to take my children, round Norton Bridge and still the wheel is there, it works, by the canal. There must be other mills, anything with mill in the name, Millford, either a water mill or windmill.

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Interview with: Ethel - N-u-L Library reminiscence project

Location: Newcastle-Under-Lyme

Interviewer: Hilary Hughes

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

My Mum made bread years ago, of course, she's gone now, naturally when I 'm ninety you can't expect her to be alive. There was only four of us, she did have more children but they didn't live. She had have more children but they didn't live. She had twins after me when I was six, I can just about remember it, being stuck in the kitchen instead of being in the front room, when it was all going on. Me father got a job in Holmes Chapel, he was cycling there from Hassell Moss, where we lived, out in the wilds. It was the only place he coud find a house so that was it. It was four rooms downstairs and three up, but we'd no bathroom so we had to manage as best we could. He came one night and said we're moving house, got a van coming tomorrow to take you and of course we all gathered our things together, we hadn't got a lot, in them days you hadn't had you. I used to Wheelock to school that was quite away, so now I think I'm ninety and still walking. When I'm looking at people  who are sixty and can't walk so I'm putting it down to be able to walk when I was very young. Sounds right to be. She used to make it now and again but not all the time. She used to send me up to the village to get a loaf, never sent me sister because me sister would have been half an hour and I was ten minutes. I was on me feet all the while, being very active. I worked in the wallpaper mill, my Dad had a staff job and I was the kiddie.

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Interview with: Elizabeth Redhead

Date: 27/05/14

Location: Newcastle-Under-Lyme

Interviewer: Steve Cooling

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

I do loads of baking, I use to make all my own bread when my children were at home, I don't anymore.  When my daughter came home from a year living in America her first meal of choice was an egg and cress sandwich on mums homemade bread.

I work for Total Bakery who make baking equipemnt and sell it all over the world.

My husband and I are going to make a wood fired bread oven in the garden.  He's a potter and has made his own kilns.

As a child my favourite bread was Hovis, with banana on, in fact I had a banana butty only the other week and I hadn't had one in years.

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Interview with: Elaine Williams

Date: 19/08/14

Location: Chesterton

Interviewer: Steve Cooling

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

I remember going for bagels with my dad, it was a Jewish bakery.  I was aged 5-12 and lived in Manchester, you don't see them bakeries round here.  They do these American ones in the supermaket in packets but I don't think they're as nice.  We would also get normal loaves from the same bakery, my dad sliced his bread like a door step.

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Interview with: Dorothy - Woman at Salvation Army Diner Club

Date: 02/07/14

Location: Chesterton

Interviewer: Steve Cooling

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

I remember Embery's bakery also Swetenhams use to have a shop on the corner of London Road and Brick Kiln Lane, Chesterton.  Their bakery was down by the roundabout at Loomer Road, it's flats now.

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Interview with: Derek Wallace

Date: 17/04/14

Location: Shelton

Interviewer: Hilary Hughes

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

My fathers Jamaican and he was a baker, a Jamaican baker, so that might be interesting how different cultures have a different spin on how they make their bread. So we used to see Jamaican Buns being made in our house in the 70's and obviously it was as a child I had a fond memory of the way the dishcloth was rising, obviously it was the yeast. So yes,  I've seen a lot of breads and stuff being baked. I can go forward, I was actually privileged when I went to Goldsmiths University in the 80's to actually work for an Italian bakery. They were high end bakers, they used to do the bread for the Houses of Parliament. So those, Dorchester, Houses of Parliament, I remember driving the van, the security pass to get in, that was ........(sounds like T'chinos) bakery, in Bermondsey, they were Italian. I went to study at Goldsmiths and my uncle got me a part time job, 4.30 in the morning, horrendous, lugging two tons of flour upstairs, one of the jobs you do in the formative years. The bread was amazing, superb.

Hard dough, a dough with stronger texture. Like now it's Easter, so bread, now the famous bread from the Caribbean bakeries at this particular time would be known as a 'duck bread'. Very creative, there's a little duck on the end of the bread, not the full thing, a little head. That bread flies off the shelves. And twist breads, the bread is plaited, just gorgeous those are the breads consumed in quantities round about now. Main ports of call for this bread in the UK, Birmingham, London obviously, Wolverhampton, maybe Bristol, where the stronger communities are.

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Interview with: Dawn – Nimble Fingers knitting group

Date: 27/05/14

Location: Newcastle-Under-Lyme

Interviewer: Steve Cooling

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

We use to have the bread man come, he would bring bread and cake a couple of times a week.

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Interview with: David

Date:17/04/14

Location: Shelton (OCIS Café)

Interviewer: Hilary Hughes

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

I live in Trentham, come here on the bus, on my own. Bread, well yes, me Mum used to make bread and she started me off. I used to make it by hand at one time, but I can't 'cos I've got arthritis in my right hand, but I have got a breadmaker. I need someone to help me with it, I did have a support worker but she's gone over to Revival, so I've got no one to help me, it's just the measurements I get stuck with. I've got a pasta machine as well, haven't tried to use it yet. I used to make coriander bread. You mix with fresh seeds of coriander, they have a lovely aroma like oranges and I've done with buckwheat. I have to be careful now, I have a wheat alergy, celiac, so I have to have special bread mix, if I had somebody to help me with the measurements I could make me own.

Me Mum made it with fresh yeast, we used to get the yeast from the supermarket or the local shop. We used to make bread in loaf tins and round ones like a bun loaf. I liked the crust, those were the days, in the 1960's when me Mum made bread. I started making me own bread pretty soon after me Mum died, she died in 1999, in March. My friend makes bread as well, she's got a bread machine. First in the bread machine I made buns, they were successful, second time I had more success I made it with coriander. It's just the measurements I get stuck with.

It's easy to make chapatis, you want 8oz of flour, a pinch of salt sometimes I'd add curry powder, or mixed herbs. You put them on the frying pan. Use a rolling pin, make little round balls then roll 'em out. I watched  a cookery programme and got the idea off them. There's two types actually, one you use olive oil and deep fry it. Eat them with stir frys.

Making bread you have to knead it with your hands, knead it three or four times, otherwise it won't rise. It takes a  long time to make it rise. Me Mum cooked the bread in loaf tins and round ones for bun loaves, sometimes we made rolls as well, bread rolls, put them on a baking sheet like scones. I think we had a Mrs Beatons, a big thick book, I've still got it. All this talk of bread it's making me hungry.

We used to have, Wrights bakery down at Trentham, at the bottom of Hanford roundabout. There used to be a bakery but they've gone now, closed down. We've got another little bakery now, The Bread Basket that's the nearest one now.

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Interview with: David Mollart

Date:15/05/14

Location: Newcastle-Under-Lyme

Interviewer: Hilary Hughes

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

I hadn't passed me test, it's when drivers had a van lad, spent about, oh I don't know six months on there (Embrey's  Bakery). But in the early 60's there were plenty of jobs about and you went for another ten shillings a week somewhere.

Me other experience of bakery was Cartwrights, in Burslem, Park Avenue, no, just off the Hamill, I spent about six months up there. It was a small family run company, that was generally oatcakes, bread, confectionary, that sort of thing, cakes, which was thoroughly enjoyable, but I wanted another ten shillings a week. 

So I got a job down at Burgess's Bakery, by Smithfields market, which is now gone, it's gonna be the Aldi Supermarket I believe, the cattle  market used to be opposite every Thursday, to my way of thinking, and I went delivering to their shops, you know, not really involved with bread. But I remember the old bread if you know what I mean, the VitBe, and stuff like that, the VitBe flour.

On Embrey's it was a Ford Thames 4D, what they called a 4D, it was the Stafford run, the old Stafford and it was running out to Dennington, Doxey, goodness knows places like that.There was no one way system then, like there is now in all towns. And they were very enjoyable jobs. It was my first introduction to the working system of things, the camaraderie of friends. You know bakeries were mostly women, mostly women, they were women  orientated, that's not being sexist, that's what they were. And they were very enjoyable jobs.

I then moved onto various jobs nothing to do with bakeries, twenty years on textiles at Talke, twenty years on Trent bathrooms at Hanley, but you know by then you'd bought a house, you were working shifts, but that was my first introduction to work really. I can still remember the sweetness of it, the baking process if you like.

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Interview with: Clare Stevens

Date: 01/05/14

Location: Newcastle-Under-Lyme

Interviewer: Dalit Fishman Hendel

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

After I left University I had a few temping jobs.  One of these was a bread taster at Allied Bakeries on the A34. My job was to collect samples of bread from the production line and leave them on shelves and watch them go mouldy over 4 days.  One of my favourite jobs was to pick a loaf off that was partly baked and I got to take it off to a test oven at the side of the factory floor and bake it off myself.  We got to slice the bread and eat it and test the consistancy of it.  The crunch and the crackle of the fresh bread was just wonderful.

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Interview with: Christine Burton

Date:15/05/14

Location: Newcastle-Under-Lyme

Interviewer: Hilary Hughes

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

Well I was born in Newcastle upon Tyne then I went down to Yorkshire and now I'm down here. I've only been down here a couple of years, so when I retired I came down here, my son married a Stoke girl. So I moved down here, I just thought that (BeRo Recipe Book) that brings back a few memories, you know what I mean. I mean like I say, me Mam used to make her own bread, there was five of us and you know it was brilliant. Like I say I still have her BeRo book and I'd never part with it or anything like that. 

Oh first thing in the morning, getting up, that first thing in the morning, well that's what woke you up, the smell. She was up early, the fire was on in the winter. It was a happy childhood, sometimes it was hard, a hard life for her really, but it was good. 

Oh yes I like to bake. I don't do now 'cos I'm by meself, I do bake and give to the family. But bread I always used to like to do my own bread. Well I don't follow recipes, I use them as a guide sort of thing you know. I used to make me white bread buns, mainly bread buns and the odd brown loaf. I could never get me texture right with the brown bread I don't know why. Things are different now, the flours are more refiner, the yeast, the yeast and things like that are all brought up to date you don't have soak it and things like that. Actually me Mam wasn't much of a baker but she taught me and me sister to bake and we turned out quite well bakers, you know what I mean. 

But it was always the BeRo book, the BeRo book was out. Like I say I've got it and I wouldn't part with it you now. It's funny when I saw it I thought, God that brings back memories. That's all there was really, the BeRo book, that was me Mams' bible.

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Interview with: Brenda Farrington

Date: 02/07/14

Location: Chesterton

Interviewer: Steve Cooling

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

In the late 1930's at Christmas time my dad use to take our bird to be cooked at Stones Bakery in Newcastle. We would have a turkey or a duck or fowl.  We had to pluck it at home first.  We would sit there when my dad brought this bird in and we would pluck it and put the feathers on the fire.

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Interview with: Bez Cary

Date: 21/08/14

Location: Stoke

Interviewer: Steve Cooling

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

I started making bread in 1953 at high school when I lived in Cambridge. I would make bread at home for my parents.  I love making bread, it's got a lovely feel to it.

Every Saturday morning I made bread, it fitted in-between doing other things.  It doesn't take much time as it's spread over a long while.  then they discovered at my husbands school that I could make bread so they said could I do some rolls for the end of school party.  I made 6 dozen little rolls and I made them all different shapes and sizes, like sea shells, little cottage buns, long ones.  Once I did that it got that I had to do them every single term, so I got lumbered with that.  With the bread mixture you can turn it into all sorts of things, current buns, Chelsea buns, lardy cakes.

When you go to church they give you these little wafers and they called bread.  I've never tried those flat breads but I've made Brioche and that comes out rather nicely.

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Interview with: Betty Howlett

Date:21/08/14

Location: Stoke

Interviewer: Steve Cooling

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

There were 2 bake shops on London Road, Beardmores and Marsh's.  Marsh's still bake their own bread.  I do love fresh crusty bread, it's the companion of your life.  As you get older you don't need as much bread, my husband did though.

All my 3 grandchildren make bread. They'll say 'ooh, I'll just go and make a loaf'.  I made one once, took a photograph of it, you could of built a house with it I think.  It was only recently.  They have parties and my grandson will make all sorts of bread and shapes.  I'll think 'a bloke did these', it's amazing. I can only do bricks.

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Interview with: Beryl Jones

Date:21/08/14

Location: Stoke

Interviewer: Steve Cooling

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

I remember going to Maggies shop.  The bread didn't come wrapped up or anything like that, it use to come on trays and she would just tip it into a big box that she had in the shop.  I use to go in and say 'can I have a loaf Mrs Bolton?' and she would reply 'yes alright, help yourself'.  Well, I was only small and I had to scrawl up the box and try and get in, I did it and I didn't fall in.

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Interview with: Anne Young Helen Goodwin

Date:15/04/14

Location: Newcastle-Under-Lyme

Interviewer: Steve Cooling

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

Anne Young

There was a little bakery in Oxford Street, Penkhull.  They use to make bread and baps.  When there was a strike on at the big bakeries people were queuing down the street to get the bread.  During 'The Winter of Discontent' you were only allowed one loaf at the supermarket.  A woman who lived near me said "Well if I queue up and come through again can I have another loaf?", well she had 3 kids!

Helen Goodwin

When we were young we had it off the bread man, Embrey's I think, we never made it.  You just left your money on the window sill and he'd leave the bread and take the money.

Bread today is a bit expensive!

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Interview with: Anne Thornley

Date:01/07/14

Location: Newcastle-Under-Lyme

Interviewer: Steve Cooling

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

I grew up in Wrinehill and during the 1960's we bought sliced bread from Alpin's shop and the post office after Alpin's closed.  I would get 1 loaf of Mothers Pride and 1 loaf of Sunblest.  I can alos remember my maternal grandmother would get bread delivered when I was 5, during the 1950's.  I would have a triangular piece with butter on, if I was good. It was a 2lb loaf and came wrapped in white tissue.

My grandfather John (Jack) Lyth was a baker at a bakery in Wrinehill. I don't know the name of the bakery but it was next to The Bluebell pub on the corner of Main Road and Checkley Lane.

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