1

It's going off in a minute. In a minute. Any minute. Go on you fucker go off and have done.

You noisy fucker. Christ I'm tired. 

Should have got some sleep. Turned out the light. Closed the curtains. When the wine went was when I should have gone. Tired enough then. Could have slept 20 hours and not dreamed. Didn't need the night-cap. Well away. Out on my feet. Shuddering.

But you open the next and then you're in, aren't you? And it is a nice drop of rum. Warming not hot. Sweet not sickly. I'll take it to work. No I won't. Have that cunt neck it down? He can fuck off. 

Middle of the night has been my morning since I was 14 year old. Other people's mornings are my afternoons. Their afternoons my nights. Their evenings still my nights.

So walked this walk through these dead streets, all those years, all on my own, quiet. My steps and a clinking bag.

Everyone's asleep except me. That's how it feels. Bakers. All over the world. Even the postmen are still in their bed, not earning their daily bread. We'll be making the fucking bread mate. And the cakes, such as we do these days…

I see foxes all the time. Used to see a few deer. A stag once, bang in the middle of the road. Staring right into my eyes as I come round the corner, like the fucker had been waiting for me.

All night. Big bastard. It took a step closer and I threw the empty bottle. Gawped for a minute then strolled off, no worries in the world, between the houses, towards the gasometer.

Town's grown since then. Built out every side. Pokey little shitholes where the big fields used to start. If stags still wander in they don't come this far. Be walking the rows and rows of fucking chicken coops, miles over there, waiting for somebody else, not me…

Over the bridge, down the hill, light of the bakery shining through the darkness. Sometimes. Not much now. Cunt never keeps hold of a key for two minutes, so either I get in first or I'm down the hill towards a black window.

Dark today. Light back then, always. Gleaming. Steaming, in the cold. Loud from yards off, the gaffer bashing tins, swearing, laughing, shouting where the fuck you been when you duck in, early, late, bang on time, always the same.

Coat off straight to work, four of us in the back then, sifting, kneading, slicing dough, filling tins, hot and loud, clanging, sweat pissing out of us, thirsty.

The gaffer's wife Alice ran the front,
kept the tea flowing,
kept your whistle wet when the flour was flying,
flour in your eyes, clinging to the air,
the smell of proving bread, baking bread, fresh bread,
every breath was bread.

There he is, the fucking cunt…

Not the same rush now. No rush at all. No shouting and banging, no pissing sweat, no Alice. She went last year. I went the church. He didn't.

There won't be nobody at the door come eight today neither. Not be a line down the pavement down the street come eight. Nattering and smoking fags. 

Same faces every day. All women. Blokes came later, for the pies. Same faces at the front, same faces at the same times, same orders, two large white, three large white, large white flew out. Nobody wanted brown then. Nobody wants it now, fuckers force it down.

Spun up in white paper and down the road still hot.

Everyone got their bread here. Bar lazy cows who wouldn't walk past Crooks in King Street. But their bread was nothing next to ours. 

Gaffer's dad was a baker before him, his dad’s dad a baker before that, same shop, same ovens, a large white coming hand to hand, father to son, this is the way we do it, son. Their bread fed the town for 70 years. More. I had that bread mashed in milk before there was a tooth in my head, my mother always said.

The gaffer was sterile though. So he showed me. And that cunt.

I can taste it now. We don’t make it now. Nobody wants it now.

Comes out £1.50 a loaf if we're going to make a go. You get a fresh sliced in ADLD for half a quid. Bendy, gummy, tastes like shit but does a job. Nobody wants good bread now. Nobody round here, anyway.

We cut a few corners. On the flour and the fat. Quid a loaf we can do. Shift next to fuck all anyway. We’re out on a limb, here. Last shop on a long street and a ten-bob pasty bastard between us and the town centre.

What was the town centre.

“Yeah of course I want a brandy. A large one an’ all, I feel fucking dreadful.”

Illustrations by Lee Healey.