Baker (1)

Arthur 'Snowy' Mason at work in 1986. Photo courtesy of the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland.

David Wood: You learnt the baking trade in this bake house from the baker that worked here. Who was the baker that taught you?

Mr Mason: Mr Hunter, AH Hunter, he lived in the big house here with his mother and sister. He had it in joint ownership with his brother, first place, who […] Frank. On leaving school, I started Easter 1937. In them days we used to be out and we used to do probably forty or fifty miles a day delivering. And also in those days you took a basket full of bread to one house, you know, you’d probably five, six loaves at one house for a day's bread, they were big families. Also you didn't have 40, 50 yards to walk down the drives to people's houses, there was a row of houses and you could go along the row of houses just like that, you see.

David Wood: All the front doors opened straight on to the pavement?

Mr Mason: Yes, you didn’t have any drives to walk down. Also you used to deliver to the farms in them days twice or three times a week. But you went up those houses probably for a gentleman farmer for one loaf and the drive being a mile, a mile and a half. But nowadays a farmer takes a week's, some of them take a fortnight's supply of bread, they freeze it you see.

©David Wood & EMOHA