The Lardy Cake of Cheltenham recalled ...

Dr Ferris reminisces: "Crickley Hill man's memories of days off in Cheltenham fail to include obligatory trips to the Oxfam shop looking for what we now must call vintage clothes, though this does get a mention elsewhere on the blog, the bakers in Montpellier for excellent lardy cake and, best of all, hours of browsing in Alan Hancox's secondhand bookshop at the end of the Promenade. I learned recently that Alan Hancox was a very good friend of Colin Wilson and provided the great man with many obscure books on the paranormal to aid his increasingly esoteric research in the 1970s and 1980s. Another day-off staple for those who stayed in town for the evening as well was to go drinking in The Cotswold pub - still there but a shadow of its former self. Incidentally, the Sandwich Box moved location some years ago, and when I went there in 2006 I spoke to a lady who remembered the Crickley diggers fondly." I will see if I can find my grandmother's recipe for lardy cake, but I expect, given its ingredients, that I'll be committing an offence if I publish it.