There used to be a bakery in Tonbridge, Kent, that no longer exists, at all.
When I was at school, at mid-morning break time, anyone who knew what was good for them used to ignore the onsite facilities and leave the school grounds to make a pilgrimage to a tiny corner bakery, run by Mr & Mrs Twit, or, if Roald Dahls’s characters were not indeed drawn from two very real bakery owners from Kent, then their doppelgangers, who, unlike Mr Dahl’s gruesome creations, also happened to be two of the finest bakers you’d ever likely meet, and very sweet people to boot.
The bakery was, as mentioned above, on a tiny corner plot, the door being at the apex of the building, the internal walls pulling away diagonally from one another, very much like perspective lines as taught in art at school. Lining the left-hand wall as you entered were, at floor level, two chest freezers, in which, as far as I ever discovered, were ice pops of every colour and hue. At eye level on the walls were two shelves on which were lined up every soft drink one could imagine: Lilt, Tango (apple, orange, blackcurrant and cherry), Sprite, Vimto, Mountain Dew, Dr Pepper, R Whites, Jamaican Gingerbeer, the list goes on. For the record, at the time, the time being 2003, I was a Lilt man with Dr Pepper firmly in reserve for days when something stronger was needed. On the right-hand wall as you entered there was a huge window, the wall below which was clad entirely in cardboard crisp boxes filled to the brim with only the choicest of flavours: Chipstix, Frazzles, Monster Munch, Space Raiders, Spicy Tomato Snaps, Cheese Balls, Nik Naks, Skips, Scampi Fries, Hula Hoops, and most wonderfully of all, Brannigans, the king of crisps, its roast beef and mustard offering being the single greatest use for a potato I have ever come across.
This was a good while ago, but my memory is that from nearest the door to furthest away, on both walls, the produce scaled from cheapest to most expensive. A smart move, given what unfolded each day at 11 am.
Before getting into that, though, it is imperative to sketch a picture of the counter in the shop. Running from wall to wall across the widest section of the shop, the left-hand side of the counter was given over entirely to a glass display cabinet, within which sat two things: iced buns, or sticky Willies as they were known here, and iced Danishes or Chelsea buns. Two products. The sole focus of these wonderful old bakers was on these two products. And my oh my were they good.
At 11 am every day of the week hundreds of pupils would make the pilgrimage to this corner bakery and descend in unison. From tumbleweed empty to commuter-carriage-at-rush-hour full would take seconds. The iced buns were about 80p and the massive Danishes about £1.20. For two pounds, euphoria.
For thirty or so minutes during every break time, the shop was, literally, a bun fight. Mrs Twit manned the till, a laser precision to her movement, a Pythagorian exactitude to her management of the takings and the change. Mr Twit stalked the areas behind her, bagging up shouted orders and fetching huge trays of additional product as and when a top-up was necessary. They sold out every day.
My own order was two iced buns, one danish, and a can of Lilt. The danish would be dealt with first, still hot and sticky as a honey pot, this would be washed down with the Lilt. On the walk back to school one of the iced buns would be consumed in a calmer manner, the final Sticky Willie would remain in my pocket until fortitude was needed; maths as the last lesson of the day, for instance, or the return of hurried homework marked with the fateful ‘see me after class.’
Shamefully, the iced bun in my pocket would sometimes be accompanied by additional loot for which I carry guilt to this day. The scrum in the tiny bakery was of such chaotic magnitude, that for opportunistic little shits with wandering hands and the ability to hold a guiltless expression on their face, certain contraband could be snuck into pockets or school bags whilst jostling for position at Mrs Twits till. It was in this fashion that, occasionally, a packet of Millions, Maltesers, those little Freddos or Fudge bars, would be secreted out from the bakery alongside my daily haul of baked goods. Occasionally Mr Twit would scold a scoundrel if he eagle-eyed a wandering hand or heard a suspicious rustle from deep within the crowd. His accounts must have told him of the occassional petty-thievery that played out in the melee.
I think about this scumbaggery quite often. I was generally a model pupil, and yet on occasion, I would steal from this hard-working couple. They’ll be long gone now, they retired in the same year that I left school. At the time I told myself a narrative of a charmed retirement in the West Country, their nest egg swollen from those frenzied sales binges to us spoiled little school kids. The reality, I fear, as someone who has spent his career working in, running and consulting upon numerous restaurants and cafes, is that they finally had enough of their slim margins being eroded or eradicated by little pricks like me.
I took to google maps before sitting down to reminisce, hoping that the little corner site was still being run as something; a newsagent, perhaps, or even better a bakery still. I suppose if it was, and if it made financial sense to do as much, this might add weight to my hopeful narrative regarding the charmed retirement of Mr & Mrs Twit. Instead, the Streetview showed that there is nothing there any longer, not a single thing. The corner site was of such little value that someone locally took the decision to eradicate it entirely rather than make something of it. In a country where unscrupulous developers would put a hot water bottle in an asbestos shed and sell it as a starter home, this seemed an inauspicious end for the old bakery.
I cannot make amends for my childish scumbaggery. My career as a petty thief started and ended in that Bakery, and it is my one true regret that I sometimes stole from that industrious old couple. I want to share, though, recipes for an approximation of their iced buns and iced Danishes. I have sporadically come back to trying to perfect these over the last twenty years, and have never quite nailed it until now. So below, for those of you who would like to sample a morsel of the magic that came from that little old bakery, are recipes to create something approximating the joy Mr & Mrs Twit gave to the world.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to No Cartouche to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.