Post by Les on Nov 16, 2017 20:20:20 GMT
Maidstone I remember it well: Hi Jo'Ann. I do indeed remember your Mum Aileen and Dad Ron, especially playing darts in the Greyhound with my Dad Mac and your very near neighbours Les and Alan (Streaky) Green his brother. Bill and Milly Dodds knew more or less all of us kids. Do you remember their daughters Pam and Pat? One of them was married to Buster who also played darts. Amazing you should remember our black and white rescue cat Panda. She used to wait every night outside the pub and walk back with Dad every night. The cat was better at walking 'straight' lines than Dad was at times!! Don't know if you ever went into to the actual bakery but in the centre and taking up most of the space was a huge work table and your memories of our Hot Cross Buns reminds me of my part in this family production. Dad Mac allocated me as the chief cross 'put er on er!!' of the cross mix. The whole surface was covered with trays of rows and rows of the damn things. I literally used to run from one end to the other; long ways, across and in between!! That is no joke and by the end of the session I'd be hot and cross. It felt like we made Hot X Buns for the whole of Maidstone!! Sorry Jill Lampard I know your Dad made one or two as well!! I still try to buy 'proper bread' rather than the "damp" slices that masquerades as bread today. Sadly nobody gets close but I keep trying. Can't remember your age either but I think you were certainly younger than myself (64) older brother Michael (67) and the "Baby" of the family Shaun (56). Do you still live in Maidstone? or somewhere else? Dads Swiss buns were great. A simple bun dough covered with lovely soft fondant icing. Sometimes he'd do the icing in a different colour other than the usual bluish white because he'd get bored with the same colour. This time of year he would cook most local people's turkeys for free because the old style gas cookers were not all that big. He'd wrap them in an unleavened (unsalted) dough and on Christmas Day the locals would come and very gingerly carry the Turkey home!! Fremlins, where we got our gift of a turkey from used to give us an enormous bird (one year we had a 36lb one!!). I think we were still eating it by Easter.