‘LIKE RISING DOUGH, WE TOO CAN TRANSFORM’
One reader on how she found solace baking bread
There is something very personal about bread. It has fed and connected people for centuries and is a symbol of nurture, togetherness and transformation. Kneading dough at the kitchen workbench in an old farmhouse in Northumberland, I look over the garden to the fields of wheat, oats and spelt beyond, and I feel at peace. No matter how uncertain the world feels, there is calm to be found in this alone time. Baking bread and watching flour, water, salt and yeast transform into a loaf is a constant reminder that when the unexpected happens, change is always possible.
My love of bread began with books. The eldest of six in a busy musical family, I grew up seeking solitude by reading. As a child, I read Heidi by Johanna Spyri over and over again, fascinated by the black bread and cheese wrapped in a cloth that Heidi was given to eat by her grandfather in their mountain hut. My mother was a good cook but wasn’t a baker, and I spent hours imagining what Heidi’s rye bread would taste like. Immersing myself in this world felt like an escape from the chaos of family life.
However, as the years went by, I forgot about those daydreams. My parents both worked in education, so success to them was measured more by academic grades than creative pursuits such as baking.
When I finished school, I went off to study psychology at university. But in my first year of study, at the age of 19, I fell pregnant unexpectedly.
The future, once bright, now seemed uncertain. We decided to get married.
Our daughter Sarah was born prematurely and I was put on a ward where other women had their newborns with them, while Sarah was taken to the special care baby unit. As I was handed the card detailing the twice-a-day visiting times, I grasped it in my hands, crying uncontrollably. I had read all about maternal bonding and attachment theory in my studies. Lying in a hospital bed, I was gripped by fear that my relationship with my daughter would be harmed by the separation. I would wander up the corridor, peering through the window of the unit, just willing her to know that I was there.
Sarah came home after three weeks but she became increasingly unwell. She developed hydrocephalus, a build-up of fluid in the brain, which meant repeated operations, and it soon became clear that her development was significantly delayed. With life dominated by hospital visits, I knew there was no way I could return to my studies.
It was 10 years before I went back to university. By then I’d had two more beautiful children, got to grips with special education, taken up voluntary work teaching English to women in the Asian community and studied philosophy in adult education classes. Returning to Newcastle University as a full-time student in philosophy and psychology, I threw myself into my studies. I was determined to succeed; although the feeling of being 10 years behind and running to catch up has never left me.
After university, I got a job in a community arts organisation, using music and drama to help people with learning disabilities. It was something I felt very
The life lessons I’ve learned from baking have provided clarity
passionate about, having seen the smile light up Sarah’s face whenever she heard music. I worked my way up to become a chief executive, had three more children and met my husband, Tom.
THE BAKING BEGINS
Now a mother to six, I began to realise that I loved cooking, and baking bread in particular. I taught myself from books, experimenting with different recipes. There was an awful lot of trial and error, times when I would over-prove the dough, or it would stick to the tin, but with each loaf, I was learning more, not just about the process, but about myself. I had spent years seeking perfection and chastising myself when things hadn’t gone to plan. Slowly, I began to see that in life, as in baking, there are so many variables you simply can’t control.
In 2009, I entered one of my loaves into a bread competition at our local village show – and was thrilled when it won. When it comes to self-esteem, it is so important to develop an intrinsic sense of your own self-worth. However, it is still encouraging to have our achievements recognised. That certificate from a little show in deepest Northumberland meant so much because it was a symbol of my capability and my confidence. Making something outside ourselves provides the opportunity to have aspects of our identities positively reflected back to us. I have kept the certificate to this day.
When I was unexpectedly made redundant, instead of feeling anxious, I saw it as an opportunity to change. Bread-making had taught me so much; not least the fact that I wanted to be creative, to help others and for them to see that they were loved.
Using my redundancy money to fund my studies, I retrained as a therapist. From 2013, I worked in the NHS, before coming full circle and moving to my current job supporting students at Newcastle
University, where I had once studied.
The life lessons I’ve learned from baking bread have continued to provide clarity, reassurance and balance. Four years ago, my parents died within weeks of each other. In his 80s, my father had been diagnosed with an incurable, progressive illness and his health was declining when Mum, who had been a fit 90-year-old, suddenly became seriously ill and died on my father’s 89th birthday. Three weeks later, I lost my father, too.
PUTTING THEORY INTO PRACTICE
As a therapist, I knew all the theory about suffering. And yet, being a healthcare professional does not make you immune to those emotions. When Sarah was born, I had been so fixated on coping, on just getting through and managing, that I hadn’t allowed myself to come to terms with my complex feelings.
With the wisdom of time, I realised that I couldn’t live in denial when it came to the inevitable grief of losing my parents. Instead, I learned from the past and told myself I needed to soak in the enormity of the losses I had experienced. Emotions need to be felt with the heart, as well as understood in the head. Like a sourdough loaf requires patience and care, there is no hurrying the process of grief.
Bread continues to inspire, soothe and nurture my family. My children are grown up now – from Sarah, aged 43, to the youngest, Rose, who is 18. All of them are keen cooks in their own way. My daughter Becky, 40, has two children of her own, and I’ve made pizzas and gingerbread houses with my grandchildren, Dylan, now 15, and Ella, 12. My son, Thomas, 29, told me that eating my loaves has inspired him to bake and he recently sent me a picture of some elaborate jalapeño and cheese pretzel buns he’d made. Meanwhile, Jonny, 38, who used to be in the army, once baked bread in an improvised oven while serving in Afghanistan, and Violet, a student, has mastered cooking on a budget. It gives me great joy to know my passion has passed down to my children. It doesn’t surprise me that so many people have turned to making bread during the pandemic. I think there’s something about the security it provides, a sense of home and going back to basics and, maybe, the older ways of doing things, which is very appealing. It may also be to do with recognising values, the things that really matter.
As for me, I have learned acceptance. I spent years trying to prove myself, but I am now at peace with my past, able to view my younger self with compassion rather than criticism. I know a loaf of bread won’t solve every problem, but there is nothing quite like a worktop scattered with flour and the feeling of dough under your fingernails. It is the feeling of possibility, mindfulness and change; the bringing together of unprepossessing ingredients before they rise to a glorious conclusion.