"I started baking bread for Dòmhnall an ‘Ic Tharmoid in Lionel around 1912 when I was about fourteen years of age.  We would start work at 5 o'clock in the morning and continue until six o'clock in the evening.  We made the dough before we went home at night so that it would be ready for the morning.  The dough was made in a large tub by combining some water with about half a bag of flour.  We would then cover this with cloth sacks to keep the dough reasonably warm until morning.

"We would continue kneading the dough for about fifteen minutes - Iain Ruadh Tàilleir was our ‘gaffer’ and when he thought the dough was ready he would tell us when to stop.   We would then climb out of the tub, wash our feet, and have a cup of tea and a biscuit.  We would then take out the dough and cut it into 2lb 2oz pieces.  You would then roll these out, one in each hand until the dough was used up. There were about eight dozen to the batch.   We would place the loaves on a tray in pairs, cover them and leave them to rise for about half an hour.  The bread would then be placed in the oven.  The baking time was two and a quarter hours with the bread being about two ounces lighter when it eventually came out of the oven.   Then the hard work began - the deliveries.  You had to visit every house to deliver bread and take orders for the next day - sometimes having to return to the bakery three or four times when you ran short of bread.  A loaf cost about three pence each in those days.

"The other bakers in the shop at the time were Iain Ruadh Tàilleir, and Uilleam Damh, from Stornoway, who was a fully certificated baker.  Dolaidh Aonghais an 'Ic Leòid and Mac Ruairidh Alasdair Oig also worked there.  There were five people working there altogether. Dòmhnall an 'Ic Tharmoid was a very good  boss, he never said a wrong word to you.  I remember once when a visitor from the mainland came into the shop.  He bought a loaf of bread there and took it with him.  Later, in Stornoway, he compared the quality of bread from the various island bakeries - Dòmhnall an 'Ic Tharmoid won first prize and received a gold watch for his bread. 

"When I first started working I didn't have any shoes to wear.  I got my first pair of shoes from my boss and he kept two shillings out of my wages until the shoes were paid for.  I only took home four shillings for the first while. 

"When we finished work at the end of the day we had to go for water to the ‘pump’ in Port or to the Schoolhouse.  Sometimes we took water from a barrel at ‘An Fiosaich's house.  We would then scrub the floor and equipment so it would be clean and ready to use in the morning.  The ovens were made of brick with the fire at the bottom.  They would take eight dozen loaves at a time.  The oven heat was tested by shaking some flour into the oven; if the flour went brown the oven was hot enough.  When there was a wedding on we went to the house with a special delivery of two dozen loaves.  They didn't invite us to the wedding but we got some bread and jam.