THE BAKERY
Preface
Talking about the bakery with my Dad yesterday prompted me to write about it. I’ve also suggested he does too, after his lament about why his father, W.F. Dobson, persuaded him to work there. For it was, after all, a rather grim place.
“Why on earth he thought I would enjoy delivering loaves of bread at five in the morning down the dark, wet cobbled backstreets of Nelson and Burnley I’ve no idea. It certainly didn’t make your Mum very happy,” he said.
He then disclosed, in a slightly strained voice, why he thought his older brother Michael had been spared the indignity of the grind down at the bakery.
“I think to my Mother, he was the apple of her eye and she thought he was destined for greater things.”
There was a pause after he said that. It made me think of Michael. It also made me think of them. The family dynamics. Their dreams and ambitions. And regrets.
The bakery was, as I vaguely recall, a rather Dickensian place. Certainly from the broken recollections only an eight-year-old could salvage.
As they push through, I’m reminded how utterly fascinating it was. Maybe not for my Dad at the time, but certainly for me as a toddler. And in all honesty, if I could return to it now, camera around my neck, exactly as it looked then, I think I could create a remarkable set of pictures. It was all pre-war industrial revolution meets Florence Nightingale.
If anyone knows the work of British photographer Bill Brandt, who made his name photographing pre and post-war Britain — especially the factories and backstreets of the North of England — then you can imagine the setting for the bakery.
So for now I post one of Brandt’s images, and tonight I write my recollections.
And yes, I’m going to press my father, while he’s still with us, into delving deeper into his own memories of not only working there, but how it affected him psychologically. How ultimately it was instrumental in taking us away from England altogether. For his wish for his wife’s happiness would eventually lead us to emigrate to much jollier climes.
Talking about the bakery with my Dad yesterday prompted me to write about it. I’ve also suggested he does too, after his lament about why his father, W.F. Dobson, persuaded him to work there. For it was, after all, a rather grim place.
“Why on earth he thought I would enjoy delivering loaves of bread at five in the morning down the dark, wet cobbled backstreets of Nelson and Burnley I’ve no idea. It certainly didn’t make your Mum very happy,” he said.
He then disclosed, in a slightly strained voice, why he thought his older brother Michael had been spared the indignity of the grind down at the bakery.
“I think to my Mother, he was the apple of her eye and she thought he was destined for greater things.”
There was a pause after he said that. It made me think of Michael. It also made me think of them. The family dynamics. Their dreams and ambitions. And regrets.
The bakery was, as I vaguely recall, a rather Dickensian place. Certainly from the broken recollections only an eight-year-old could salvage.
As they push through, I’m reminded how utterly fascinating it was. Maybe not for my Dad at the time, but certainly for me as a toddler. And in all honesty, if I could return to it now, camera around my neck, exactly as it looked then, I think I could create a remarkable set of pictures. It was all pre-war industrial revolution meets Florence Nightingale.
If anyone knows the work of British photographer Bill Brandt, who made his name photographing pre and post-war Britain — especially the factories and backstreets of the North of England — then you can imagine the setting for the bakery.
So for now I post one of Brandt’s images, and tonight I write my recollections.
And yes, I’m going to press my father, while he’s still with us, into delving deeper into his own memories of not only working there, but how it affected him psychologically. How ultimately it was instrumental in taking us away from England altogether. For his wish for his wife’s happiness would eventually lead us to emigrate to much jollier climes.
The Bakery — Part 1
One of my most vivid recollections of the bakery was a night visit. Hardly vivid actually. More an abstract impression as I try to conjure the memories.
I think Dad must have forgotten something. Keys perhaps. We needed to pop in before heading home. We’d just come up from London. Before that we’d been house-sitting my cousin’s smallish pre-war semi in Southend-on-Sea while his family were away on holiday.
I remember somewhere up the M1, probably north of Sheffield, it raining heavily. The motorway soaked in lurid orange sodium street lighting. The dark interior of the car. Mum and Peter, my brother, asleep in the back. I was upfront, aware the car was speeding up.
Dad, bathed in the light from the dashboard, had a concentrated look on his face. He was pushing our Triumph Mk2 hard. At a point when the engine seemed to be making quite a din, and the wipers were frantically sloshing away the rain, he turned to me, grinned and said: “100mph son.”
It was a speed milestone for cars in those days. Dad looked rather chuffed with himself as the engine wound down and the car began to slow.
When we pulled up outside the bakery it was still raining. Its imposing exterior stood to our right. Before us lay a cobbled street and rows of terraced houses tapering off into the dark wet night. It was all very Coronation Street.
Dad beckoned me to come with him while we left Mum and Peter asleep in the car. We’d wake them once we finally got home.
One of my most vivid recollections of the bakery was a night visit. Hardly vivid actually. More an abstract impression as I try to conjure the memories.
I think Dad must have forgotten something. Keys perhaps. We needed to pop in before heading home. We’d just come up from London. Before that we’d been house-sitting my cousin’s smallish pre-war semi in Southend-on-Sea while his family were away on holiday.
I remember somewhere up the M1, probably north of Sheffield, it raining heavily. The motorway soaked in lurid orange sodium street lighting. The dark interior of the car. Mum and Peter, my brother, asleep in the back. I was upfront, aware the car was speeding up.
Dad, bathed in the light from the dashboard, had a concentrated look on his face. He was pushing our Triumph Mk2 hard. At a point when the engine seemed to be making quite a din, and the wipers were frantically sloshing away the rain, he turned to me, grinned and said: “100mph son.”
It was a speed milestone for cars in those days. Dad looked rather chuffed with himself as the engine wound down and the car began to slow.
When we pulled up outside the bakery it was still raining. Its imposing exterior stood to our right. Before us lay a cobbled street and rows of terraced houses tapering off into the dark wet night. It was all very Coronation Street.
Dad beckoned me to come with him while we left Mum and Peter asleep in the car. We’d wake them once we finally got home.
The Bakery — Part 2
Goodness my memory is vague. This all feels like peripheral vision stuff.
The big rolling shutter gates remained closed. We entered through a small side door beside them. I followed Dad into the dank dark interior. It smelled faintly of sour milk. He fumbled about for a light switch.
There was an office to the right illuminated by the dull glow of a lamp seen through a glass hatch window, where orders were passed between the office clerk, baking staff and delivery men — my Dad among them.
A Bedford delivery van skulking in the shadows dominated the loading bay.
When the fluorescent ceiling light above us flickered into life, I saw the logo on its side: Dobson & Sons
A few bakery cats emerged from beneath the vehicle and started meowing. I thought of the three white mice from the bedtime stories my Grandma invented — tales of their adventures finding cheese and cream while dodging the bakery cats.
While Dad rummaged through the office looking for whatever he’d come to find, I peeked through one of the doors leading into the working area of the bakery. I’d been there before, so I knew what lay beyond.
In the shadows of the night the huge dough mixing bowls appeared eerie, their brooding shapes looking like metal monsters from War of the Worlds. I recalled how different the bakery felt now in the dead of night compared to daytime.
Daytime was busy. Men tossing eggs and bags of flour into the dough mixers. Women who would fuss over me. The ones I remember wore hairnets and bland frocks with aprons. They looked funny talking to me in little-boy speak while the fag pursed between their lips bounced up and down.
They all had pasty faces and smelled faintly sour. Dough. Milk. Cheese.
My Dad too.
I seem to recall his blue anorak smeared in crumpet oil. He looked frail and underweight. I think his Dad was pushing him too hard.
My Grandad — the gaffa, as Dad called him — was the best dressed on the premises. His Daimler parked outside the bakery was my favourite car. I always wanted to sit inside on the leather seats and play with the electric windows. I didn’t mind the ashtray smell. They overflowed with fag ends. The carpets silver-grey from all the ash he dropped on them.
W.F. was an amicable fella. Always standing about smiling, looking immaculate in suit and tie, hair Brylcreemed down, shiny leather shoes, a fag smouldering between his fingers while everyone else dashed around.
My cousin Steven has far more memories of the bakery than I do. He recently told me about the time Grandad looked deadly serious while investigating the case of a fag stub found inside a loaf of bread. It might even have been one of W.F.’s. Everyone smoked in those days.
I guess the mystery was never solved.
Another great anecdote Steven shared with me: W.F. Dobson became known as “The Crumpet King of the North.”
Bloody marvellous, I thought.
Goodness my memory is vague. This all feels like peripheral vision stuff.
The big rolling shutter gates remained closed. We entered through a small side door beside them. I followed Dad into the dank dark interior. It smelled faintly of sour milk. He fumbled about for a light switch.
There was an office to the right illuminated by the dull glow of a lamp seen through a glass hatch window, where orders were passed between the office clerk, baking staff and delivery men — my Dad among them.
A Bedford delivery van skulking in the shadows dominated the loading bay.
When the fluorescent ceiling light above us flickered into life, I saw the logo on its side: Dobson & Sons
A few bakery cats emerged from beneath the vehicle and started meowing. I thought of the three white mice from the bedtime stories my Grandma invented — tales of their adventures finding cheese and cream while dodging the bakery cats.
While Dad rummaged through the office looking for whatever he’d come to find, I peeked through one of the doors leading into the working area of the bakery. I’d been there before, so I knew what lay beyond.
In the shadows of the night the huge dough mixing bowls appeared eerie, their brooding shapes looking like metal monsters from War of the Worlds. I recalled how different the bakery felt now in the dead of night compared to daytime.
Daytime was busy. Men tossing eggs and bags of flour into the dough mixers. Women who would fuss over me. The ones I remember wore hairnets and bland frocks with aprons. They looked funny talking to me in little-boy speak while the fag pursed between their lips bounced up and down.
They all had pasty faces and smelled faintly sour. Dough. Milk. Cheese.
My Dad too.
I seem to recall his blue anorak smeared in crumpet oil. He looked frail and underweight. I think his Dad was pushing him too hard.
My Grandad — the gaffa, as Dad called him — was the best dressed on the premises. His Daimler parked outside the bakery was my favourite car. I always wanted to sit inside on the leather seats and play with the electric windows. I didn’t mind the ashtray smell. They overflowed with fag ends. The carpets silver-grey from all the ash he dropped on them.
W.F. was an amicable fella. Always standing about smiling, looking immaculate in suit and tie, hair Brylcreemed down, shiny leather shoes, a fag smouldering between his fingers while everyone else dashed around.
My cousin Steven has far more memories of the bakery than I do. He recently told me about the time Grandad looked deadly serious while investigating the case of a fag stub found inside a loaf of bread. It might even have been one of W.F.’s. Everyone smoked in those days.
I guess the mystery was never solved.
Another great anecdote Steven shared with me: W.F. Dobson became known as “The Crumpet King of the North.”
Bloody marvellous, I thought.
