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Chelveston 1945 Mum, my brother and I arrived in Chelveston from a small village called Hatley St. George, Cambs, where we had been living with my step uncle after being evacuated again from London when the Flying Bombs started. As I remember we were met at Higham Ferrers station by dad and driven back to the village to meet Mr Baldwin, the previous owner of the bakery. He didn't move out until the beginning of April.
It was like stepping back in time, the village had no utilities i.e. water, electricity, gas or telephones. The only water source was the village pump just outside the Bakery, virtually on the crest of the rise of the Raunds road. The bakery was fortunate in that it had it's own well, although dad always insisted on using water from the pump to make the bread. The well water was used in the house for washing, laundry and flushing the toilet. It was one of my jobs to take two pails on a yoke and ensure there was always sufficient water in the bakehouse. The bakery was quite a large property, viewed from the top of Water Lane you had the two storey living area consisting of a very large kitchen to the right of the entrance door which stretched from the street front to the back garden. This was hub of the house, everything happened here from eating, playing, cooking, drying clothes etc. To the left of the entrance was a lounge room that only got used on high days and holidays. Directly in front of you as you entered was a flight of stairs, at the top to your left was a bedroom which was occupied by mum's mother and father (Ada and Henry Edwards) who had moved in with us during 1946. To your right was a narrow corridor with two small rooms on your right and at the end of the corridor, the main bedroom.
Adjacent to the kitchen as you moved down hill was the shop which was entered from the house through a door from the kitchen. Entrance to the shop for customers was through a door on the street front. Mum managed the shop which sold groceries, and dad managed the bakehouse. Food rationing was strictly controlled and I remember at the end of the day trying to balance the coupons you had taken against the stock you had sold. At the end of each month these were sent in to the Ministry of Supply so that more produce could be purchased, many an hour was spent balancing the coupons. I remember often searching through draws and boxes to locate certain coupons. It was a nightmare and panic stations were the order of the day at times. Butter, sugar, flour, cheese all came in bulk packages and these had to be cut, weighed and packaged for sale.
The bakehouse was entered through a door on your right as you entered the shop. On your left as you entered was a large round drum on a frame that the dough was made in, since there was no power this had to be turned by hand. Flour was put into the drum though a chute from the loft above, a full batch of bread took two sacks of flour. It was easy when you first started to turn the drum to mix the flour, water and yeast, but as it became more solid and the drum reached to top of it's turn, the dough would drop to the bottom causing an uneven turning of the handle. Sometimes if you miscalculated when the dough was going to drop you would get a whack on the arm, or hit under the chin by the handle. How we never got broken bones I'll never know. Next to the drum was a long wooden trough that the dough was put into to rise over night.
To your right as you entered the bakehouse was a bench that stretched form the doorway right up to the oven, this had a metal top where the bread tins were put as soon as they came out of the oven. Bread was knocked out of the tins by turning the tin end-on and tapping it on the edge of the bench, the loafs were placed at the door entrance end of the bench to cool. It could take up to an hour before all the tins were taken out of the oven because they were continually moved around so that they baked evenly, if you weren't careful those nearest to the fire box could get burnt.
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A Baker’s Tale (part 1) |
