Baker Caroline Frampton got a big shock when she turned up for the first day of filming a new BBC series to find her partner’s name above the shop even though he can’t make bread.
Frampton and partner Nigel Devlin, who run Caroline’s Real Bread Company in Merthyr Cynog, Brecon, Powys, took part in the programme, Turn Back Time - The High Street, along with their four children, which saw them join other families in a project in Shepton Mallet, Somerset, to experience shopkeepers’ lives during five different eras. They were judged on best customer service and weekly sales by a panel including Hobbs House Bakery director Tom Herbert.
Said Frampton: "I was really angry that Nigel’s name was above the shop, and I was not even allowed into the bakery in the Victorian era, so I ended up trying to furtively help him in the middle of the night. But I realised that the reason women weren’t involved was that everything was so physical flour sacks were impossible to lift, there was no electricity or running water and we worked 18-hour days."
Just when baking got a bit easier, the family had to contend with rationing and, after the high street grocer started selling pre-wrapped bread, the family turned up to film the 1960s era to find their shop had become a milk bar selling burgers a victim of the Chorleywood Bread Process revolution.
The company supplies local farmers’ markets and festivals but Frampton said filming had given her the confidence to start a national delivery service.
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