About Bakestones

Family vacations when I was young were almost always long car trips, often to the colorful canyon country of Utah in the United States. One memorable feature of those trips was the tin of Welsh cakes, "bakestones," that my mother would bring as snacks. They were simple cakes made from flour, sugar, spices and raisins and cooked on a griddle. She didn't offer them until we had been driving for what seemed like forever and not until we had grown tired of carrot strips, crackers and other diversions. She always brought some for everyone, yet there were never enough.

Mom followed a recipe from her mother who learned it from her mother who likely learned it from hers. They were unlike any other snack. One bite would take you to another time and place where things were simpler. Even when the journey was exceptionally long, the bakestones always got us through.

For some years now, Mom has worked tirelessly on another treat that is much more substantial and enduring than those Welsh cakes. But like those cakes, the stories in this collection take one back to a time and place when things were simpler. She first presented them, in printed form produced with a great deal of work, as a gift to each of her children. Since then, many others have expressed interest in these stories and the insights they contain into life in late nineteenth and early twentieth century England and Wales. Publishing them online seems like the best way both to make them easily available to an ever-widening audience and to preserve them for posterity. We hope that, like those bakestones, these stories will take you to a bygone era and nourish you with simple truths that will help you with challenges in your time and place.