Island Life Magazine Ltd August/September 2016 | Page 38

Photo: Neil and his wife
Dorothy on their wedding
day October 14th 1939

scrubbing the walls, putting in new benches and cleaning
the coal-fired oven – a filthy job that had to be done
regularly with a flour sack on the end of a pole.
“These TV bakers haven’t got a clue what it was like” he
says. “I used to gauge the temperature with my hands –
they were my thermometers!”

Feeding the town!
As he built his successful bakery business, Neil would go on
to make on average 600 loaves of bread on a Friday night,
along with perhaps four dozen doughnuts, three dozen
buns and assorted dozens of custard tarts, meat pies, jam
puffs and apple turnovers.
With no machines, all the doughs had to be made by
hand, in a huge trough.
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“I thought nothing of it” he says. “It supported the family
and they all helped out”.
Indeed, Paul distinctly recalls doing the coal oven
cleaning as a young boy.
Ultimately, the Shutlers had a huge team of helpers,
as the children continued to arrive up until 1958, when
Nicholas was born – the second son he had always hoped
for, after a run of eight daughters!
There was no State help in bringing them up those days
– in fact Neil says one year, he paid more in tax than he
received in family allowance.

At the crease
Despite having such a hectic life at home and work, Neil

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