Bread and milk of human kindness

IMAGINE how bittersweet it must have been last week when snow days shut schools and you were a teacher with kids.

I’d probably have told my children their school was still open, then nipped off to the pub.

Snowmageddon has been remarkable for drawing out both heroes and villains. Hospital staff trekked to work through frozen tides, while stranded motorists got offers of help and hot drinks from strangers living nearby. The Glasgow Film Festival battled blizzards until power cuts forced the Glasgow Film Theatre to close on Wednesday. Staff slept on floors and sofabeds to get the festival back on track the following day and the woman shovelling snow off their red carpet turned out to be the Festival’s hands-on codirector Allison Gardner. Meanwhile, E.On chose the coldest day of the year to sneak out a rise in energy bills. And after the red weather warning, I watched a man wheel out a shopping trolley piled high with milk and bread. I hope he’s seriously fed up of bread and butter pudding by now.

Even last Sunday, milk never made it to the fridge shelves in my local supermarket – people were taking pints out of the hands of shop assistants. Pan white sliced bread was unavailable but the in-store ovens were cranking out fresh, warm artisan loaves. However, not everyone wanted a fancy ‘piece’.

One customer waving a sunflower seed bloomer at the information kiosk could be heard asking: ‘Is this proper bread?’