Longford Lives: Granard's Benny Fay completes final bread run with Pat The Baker

At the end of September Benny Fay pulled his Pat the Baker van into the lot of the Granard bakery for the last time. By then over 40 years had passed since he first turned the keys in the ignition of a bread delivery vehicle.

Benny started when the Pat the Baker workforce numbered less than 100, he retired leaving a staff of over 450. His first van transported around 15 different lines; white and brown pans, toasties, batches and sodas. Now the vans heading out from Granard can carry up to 50 different product lines.

From the humble sliced pan to wraps, bagels, sourdough and yeast free bread the last 40 years have seen significant changes. Keeping the tally of stock in the van with book and pen transitioned to a digital hand held device.

“It was November '82, wasn't it Mary,” Benny consults with his wife to make absolutely certain of the exact point his career started. The couple are in their Rathcronan home, only a few hundred metres from the business where he spent his working life.

Benny is harking back to a very different Granard. The Granard Harp Festival had been reinstated after a gap of two centuries and St Mary's were the Senior Champions: “There was a lot of life about the place,” Benny recalls.

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The Irish social life may have been more vibrant, but the employment landscape was very different: “Emigration was rife at the time. There were no jobs to be got. Pat the Baker was a good employer. There were not many options locally, perhaps Lite-Pac, Kiernan's Milling had just started out.

“I started off as a relief van driver. I was filling in for drivers who were out, you had to learn the runs. When guys would go on holidays I would take over their run. Everyone got three weeks holidays, so I was always working. That was from 1982 to 1989.”

There was a diversity to his job as a relief driver: “Depending on where you were in the pecking order if someone left then you could get their run, but back then people weren't leaving. When they had a job they held onto it. It was a job for life, and if you left it there was nothing else to go to.”

The job of a driver brought him far and wide: “I covered a good catchment area; Westmeath, Roscommon, Leitrim, Cavan and up to parts of Meath. It was rare you would have a supermarket open before 9am, things were much different. The shops selling papers were the exception. You could have someone waiting to get their paper, a pint of milk, a Pat's Pan and a packet of fags before they went to work.”

“If you were going a distance you may have to be in at 5:30am. One driver, Pauric Sheridan, would drive to Ballaghaderreen, with bad roads it could take him an hour and a half to get there. He had to be in at around 5am.”

Recollections of the pothole puckered byways of the 1980s highlight some of the difficulties encountered by road users of the time. Thankfully things have changed: “There have been a lot of improvements, all for the better. I got used to driving the roads, but I had some hairy adventures. North Leitrim, up around Dowra and Glangevlin could be difficult when there was snow, I remember once lads having to dig me out. The people were very good and very helpful,” Benny told.

The rural shops were dependent on the milk and bread men. There was a special relationship between the drivers, the rural shops and their customers: “Often times you would be asked to bring a few bits to Jonny-up-the-road. That was a regular thing. Isolated shops in the country would ask you to bring the paper, sliced pan and a pint of milk and leave it at a certain house.

“You would give a little hoot to let them know you had dropped it off. The postman could have the same relationship. That was the way people carried on in rural Ireland, but that's all gone now.”

In 1989, after two drivers retired, Benny was given a full time route: “Roscommon was my run. Lovely people. I've covered all of that county. It was nice after working as a relief driver to know where you were coming and going, but I did enjoy working as a relief driver.”

Rising to the occasion - seven decades of Pat The Baker

Like anyone clocking up kilometres on the road there were times when things didn't go Benny's way: “I did break down a few times. Before mobile phones you would have to make your way to the nearest house and call back to the bakery. I remember a breakdown in Castlerea, after the rear axle came off. The tow truck came and the van was put up on it, but I had to make two more stops at shops before I finished my run with the van on the back of the tow truck.”

There were other bumps on Benny's journey: “I was out sick for a year and a half. I got a bit of a scare back in 2015, but I stuck with it. I am still here to tell the tale. I was very glad to get back at it. The war wounds were very serious, but I got great support from Mary.”

Benny maintained his run through 2020 as the essential service of Pat the Baker continued through lockdown: “We kept the supply out there, but also through the Beast from the East in 2017. That was crazy, the roads were in an awful condition. We managed to keep the show on the road.”

Looking back on the last four decades Benny has seen many social shifts in his home town of Granard: “I suppose one of the biggest changes is the pubs. There used to be loads of pubs and a bit of music most nights of the week. Now there are only two or three pubs, and music is only on at the weekends. But it's a grand town.”

Benny will miss the camaraderie of his employer: “Pat the Baker was a really great employer and I really enjoyed my time there. I really liked the job. Even in winter time, when you would be out in all sorts of weather, it never bothered me.”

“The company has gone from strength to strength. When I started we didn't deliver to Dublin. When Boland's closed that changed. Then delivering to big supermarkets like Dunnes and Tesco means that the bread goes all across the country.”

Plans for the future are still being formulated: “I'm only retired a month, I have lots of bits and pieces to do,” he tells. His wife says she is enjoying seeing more of her husband: “So far so good,” Mary laughs.

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