When wrapped and sliced bread arrived in St Helens...

Morton's – the owners of the Victoria Bakery in North Road and the Edinburgh Cafe in Church Street – advertised in the St Helens' newspapers that they were the first retailers in the town to be selling their loaves in hygienic wrappings.

All bread was then unsliced and, of course, if kept sealed it would also retain its freshness for longer.

Health hazard...

Although there's nothing quite like the aroma of a freshly baked loaf, by the time unwrapped bread arrived in a family's kitchen it could well have been a health hazard.

That was because of the number of grubby hands that may have mauled the loaf and the dirty surfaces it might well have come into contact with.

Advert in the St Helens Reporter of August 29, 1924 (Image: St Helens Reporter)

Unwrapped loaves would often get thrown about and delivery boys would accidentally drop them on the street, pick them up and just carry on with their deliveries.

In describing the state of things in the capital, the Daily Mirror in the 1920s wrote: "In America, the hygienic importance of the wrapped loaf is generally recognised. London continues to eat dirty bread."

In St Helens during this period bread was made by a cottage industry of producers.

As well as branded bread that was distributed in many towns like today, big St Helens' bakeries – such as the Co-op and Swifts – baked hundreds, if not thousands, of loaves each day.

A lot of small shops in the town also had their own little bakeries out back and in addition many housewives baked their own bread.

Alternatively, a hybrid approach was employed in which the dough was made at home and then taken to a local baker to complete the job.

Frank Bamber who was born in 1910 recalled how his mother would take her dough to William Bell's bakery in Peckers Hill Road in Sutton: "They took the dough in a pillow slip to him and it was taken out, cut up and placed in baking tins. T

"Two tallies were produced, one was handed to the customer and the other was stuck in the dough in each tin. The tallies were identically marked and later on, when the bread was baked, they produced their tally and paid for the bread….As far as I can remember a 2lb loaf cost four old pennies at this period."

'The marvel of sliced bread'

When the marvel of sliced bread arrived in the North West in 1930, newspapers felt the need to explain how it worked.

Housewives were instructed to unwrap one end of the loaf, remove the required number of slices and then re-package the bread.

Advert from the Flour Advisory Bureau from the 1960s (Image: St Helens Reporter) Not exactly rocket science but it was a radical new concept and at first people needed persuasion and explanation to try it out.

Sliced loaves

In March 1930 the Manchester Evening News said the arrival in the city of pre-cut bread was only an "experiment" but at the same time stated that bread knives – "the cause of many frayed tempers as well as frayed loaves" – might soon become old-fashioned. Just how the new machinery could chop a loaf into equal portions was also admired and the term "magically sliced" was used in one newspaper report.

As sliced loaves quickly increased in popularity, so the number of small shops that baked their own bread declined, as they could not afford the magic slicing machinery.

And as people began to appreciate the convenience of pre-cut loaves, a new saying "the best thing since sliced bread" was rapidly adopted. There are not many inventions that can boast an accolade like that!

Stephen Wainwright's latest book The Hidden History Of St Helens Vol 4 is available from the St Helens Book Stop in Bridge Street and online from eBay and Amazon with free delivery. Price £12. Vols 1 to 3 are also still available.