Bread, buns and scones

My own early memories of the glorious smell of bread baking are always mingled with the soothing, soporific sound of the dough being kneaded. I remember sitting curled up in a kitchen chair, watching a farmer’s wife kneading, and rocking a cradle with her foot, in time to the rythmic slap and turn of the dough. It was I, and not the baby who fell asleep . . . Incidentally, she was the sort of woman who must have inspired the old country saying, ‘Marry a girl who bakes and brews well, and she’ll bear well.’ It was true of her in every respect, for that baby was her seventh, and six of them boys!