Airing Cupboard Alchemy

All the nice girls love a sailor,

All the nice girls love a tar.

For there's something about a sailor,

(Well you know what sailors are!)

Bright and breezy, free and easy,

He's the ladies' pride and joy!

He falls in love with Kate and Jane,

then he's off to sea again,

Ship ahoy, ship ahoy!

But enough of that old English music hall song for a moment, we’ll come back to that shortly. For now, let me ask you a question…

What springs to mind when you think of magic? Perhaps a showman in a flashy tuxedo with a corny catchphrase, a top hat, and white rabbits protruding from every available aperture? Maybe you’re more inclined to imagine the pointy hat and pointy stick variety of magical being, or you might even consider the old lady who lives on your street, smells of patchouli oil, and has a great many cats. Whatever picture your mind draws, I challenge you to think of anything quite so magically remarkable as my Gran and her magic hot cross bun.

My Gran was your typical everyday sort of Gran. She’d done all the things that young women who grew up during the second world war did before they ever became Grans. A rose cheeked eighteen year old, who met my Granddad, a sailor, (all the nice girls love a sailor, don’t you know) and was then rushed up the aisle before the bump that was my mother began to show. Three bumps later and she had a flourishing little family, putting her cooking and needlework skills to great practical use during the times of ‘make-do and mend’. Her homely cooking defined her, and her persistence in feeding any visitor, whether they wanted feeding or not. The bountiful fare that came from Gran’s kitchen might have been anything from ‘a bit of spice’ (that’s a boiled sweet with a chewy centre, not a street drug), to a bowl of her beef stew, served up in her old blue willow patterned bowls that had been her mothers, and her mothers before that.

‘But what about the hot cross bun?’ I hear you ask. For many years, my Grandparents would visit the annual Gypsy horse fair at Appleby in the Yorkshire Dales, and I’m pretty sure this was where my Gran picked up her nuggets of folklore and superstition. This included, sleeping with an onion if you were ill, not putting red and white flowers together (red blood on a white bandage), never riding in a green car (no idea on that one), and the good old magic hot cross bun.

The secret to the magic, entailed taking a hot cross bun that had been baked on Good Friday, and then hanging it up to dry out so not a drop of the succulent moisture of the sweet baked item remained. I think in the olden days this would have been done from a beam over the kitchen hearth, but for my Gran, keeping said hot cross bun in a paper bag in the airing cupboard seemed to do the trick. The bun would then cure all manner of ailments for the following year, after which, it would be replaced with a new Good Friday bun.

The fact that the bun lasted a whole year was a miracle in itself with the number of doses that Gran dispensed from her small bungalow kitchen, and portions were limited to a few crumbs given the potency and limited size of this magical object. But unfortunately, when it came to the magic bun, I was a source of family disappointment. For, unlike my cousins, parents, aunties and uncles, who would all hurry to my Gran’s house requesting a piece of the dried out cinnamon scented relic whenever they felt under the weather, I stayed clear of the brittle soapy smelling thing.

I’ll always remember one particular occasion, the week before Christmas. I was doing the rounds, visiting relatives who still lived in our small home town, and I’d called in at Gran’s to drop off her Christmas present. We’d gone through the motions of a glass of sherry (or two), a mince pie, no Gran, one is enough, honestly, no, I don’t want a sandwich or anything, and then to my dismay, an unexpected sneeze escaped my nostrils, followed by a brief snuffling into my handkerchief.

Gran was quick to react. Her instinct of mother and grandmother came straight into play. “Are you coming down with something?”

“No, Gran, I don’t think so, I’m fine. Just a bit of a cold, it’s nothing.”

“You don’t want to be poorly at Christmas. That would be a shame.”

“Oh, I’ll be okay, don’t worry.”

I knew what was coming. Please Gran, don’t bring out the bun. It’s been festering away in the airing cupboard for nearly ten months! It’s more likely to kill me than cure me!

“How about you have some of my magic hot cross bun?” Gran asked, already getting out of her chair.

“No thanks, honestly, you keep it for when someone really needs it.” But it was no use, she was already rustling about in the airing cupboard where the dreaded bun resided beside the bed linen and spare towels. I swear there must have been the fittest and healthiest mice up and down Gran’s road. Surely they’d snuck in there at some point and had a nibble.

“Here you are,” Gran returned with the green tinged piece of brittle, dried out bun, complete with a wizened looking currant poking out of the side like a deceased fly. “Now get that down you and you’ll feel better in no time!”

I held out my hand and she placed the magical piece of baked goods on my palm. “Thanks Gran.” I closed my hand tentatively around it.

“Your cousin Malcolm was here just last week with his girlfriend. She has these terrible migraine headaches. Anyway, one piece of the magic bun and she felt better almost straight away.”

“I hope you told her how you make it then,” I went along with the story, the piece of stale bun still in my hand, “sounds like she needs to have her own bun if it works that well.”

Gran could tell that I was being cheeky. “Have you eaten it all up? What’s that in your hand?”

“I’ll have it in a minute Gran.”

“Maybe you’d like a cup of tea? Help it go down?”

“That would be lovely, thanks.” Yes it would be lovely Gran…

Gran headed through into the kitchen. I heard the tap running as she filled the kettle. Then I double checked, straining my head around the corner to make sure she wasn’t coming back, and carefully opened my handbag down the side of the chair, like a shoplifter trying to secrete something away without getting caught. There we go… for all intents and purposes, the bun was gone.

“Why, you little besom!” Gran was back with a plate of biscuits and a face of pure disappointment.

“What?”

“I saw you!”

I couldn’t help but smirk. I’d been caught red handed. “What Gran? I haven’t done anything!” I was in my thirties and feeling like a naughty child, but I still couldn’t keep the smile off my face.

“You’ve put the bun in your bag. By jingo! I just saw you do it!”

“I thought I’d save it for later, for if I get really ill…” She knows I’m fibbing.

“You little monkey!”

I could see that Gran was genuinely in a state of disbelief, that I would hold the sacred bun in such low regard. I’d rejected the hot cross bun, and in doing so, I’d rejected what she believed in. The smirk slid from my face as I realised that I’d really upset her.

“Sorry Gran. I’ll have it now,” and I dropped my hand back into my bag to retrieve the crumbling fragment of air dried magic. Then I held my breath and swallowed. Just like taking medicine when I was little. Down it went. Down in one. It tasted of potpourri and soap and Gran’s airing cupboard. I tried my best not to pull a face.

Gran smiled and the room lit up again. “That’s better. You’ll be right as rain in no time.” She headed back to the kitchen to make the tea and I sat in the soft old armchair in the corner looking around the living room. All those family photos on the walls glared at me accusingly, ‘you disrespected the magic hot cross bun’ they said, especially the photograph of cousin Malcolm, even though he was only three years old in that picture, he still gave me a look of disdain. Only my own photograph, the one of me when I was ten with a bad haircut and brown roll-neck top, looked at me with some degree of sympathy.

Gran returned with the tea. We exchanged Christmas gifts and all was well again, though the whole while, I couldn’t get that potpourri taste out of my mouth and I wasn’t sure if the queasy feeling I had was down to too much sherry and biscuits or something else. Anyway, the sniffle never developed into anything more troublesome and Christmas was subsequently saved. I suppose I had the magic hot cross bun to thank for that.

My Gran passed away nine years after the bun and handbag incident. My mother and her siblings decided that the latest incarnation of the hot cross bun should be placed in the coffin with Gran, along with her favourite stuffed bear. I think she would have liked that, and I’m sure whoever she’s with on the other side will be subject to the bun if they ever happen to sneeze or have a headache.

There’s no magic hot cross bun in the airing cupboard anymore. Gran’s old bungalow is now a soulless holiday let, but I have my memories. I also have Gran’s old blue willow pattern bowls, the ones that had been her mother’s, and her mother’s before that. In a special way, they spread their own bit of magic, whenever I fill them with homemade beef stew and imagine I’m a kid again, sitting in Gran’s little kitchen, eating her hearty fare, and listening to her sing about how the nice girls love a sailor.