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Born
in 1896 in Leigh, Lancashire, Gertrude Bark, known as "GB",
was the only child of William and Gertrude Smith. The recipe book her
parents started in 1890 was contributed to by family, friends and neighbours
up until the end of the Second World War. In 1923 GB moved to Leamington
Spa. A century after the first pages of the book were written, GB found
that each recipe conjured up a memory or story from her past and in particular
her childhood in coal-mining Lancashire, such as Grandma's Raised Pies
which she brought out at midnight on New Year's Eve as "all the bells
of heaven were bursting from the quiet town" and Cousin Dick, who
in 1916 wrote home from France anticipating "arriving during some
starshine night in Manchester all the way from the trenches and be sure
to have a chunk of your chocolate cake in your pocket for me", but
who was killed in the Battle of the Somme and never did come home.
These are the recipes and the memories they evoked. |
