Nothing beats the smell and taste straight from THE BAKER'S OVEN

Derek James wants you to sit back, relax and remember the wonderful aroma which came with the message: Hot cross buns! Hot cross buns! One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns.

- Derek James

IT WAS NORMALLY a gentleman wearing a brown overall and carrying a large basket shouting those words as he walked along our streets at Easter time in days gone by.

And didn’t those hot cross buns, along with the bread and all the other treats, cakes and pastries, taste delicious?

Strange the things still in your mind from years ago, but I suspect some of you will know what I mean.

It wasn’t just the taste, it was the smell; there was nothing else like it.

When I was a boy I thought bakers were magical people who produced bread and cakes that were the best things ever to pass my lips.

In the latest in our Working Lives series, we want to applaud all the bakers from the past and present, and we hope to hear from those who worked, or are still working, in the bakeries across Norfolk and Suffolk.

Being a baker wasn’t so much a job, more a way of life.

They rarely had a lie-in. They were up at the crack of dawn baking our bread, cakes, and other tasty treats.

Before the days of the big boys, there were small bakeries dotted across towns and villages all over Norfolk and Suffolk.