Scones were one of the first things my Nana Jones, my mother’s mother, taught me how to bake. She had started me, aged 5, on scrambled eggs, standing on a stool at the stove in her kitchen in Wales (health and safety be damned!) as she guided and supervised as I stirred the beaten eggs with a splash of milk over a low heat. As she watched she told me what was happening and what to look out for. The melting of the butter to the right point. The changes as the eggs reached the perfect consistency. The need to stir continuously and to take the pan off the heat before the eggs looked remotely dry.

To introduce me to baking she sat me at her side, on the same stool, as she made firstly Welsh cakes, then pikelets (drop scones). The visible cooking of these on a griddle over a flame was the most immediate way for a child to see how eggs, flour, butter, sugar and baking powder combine with heat to make light and delicious cakes. Magic! Next on the list were scones and Nana demonstrated. First she weighed the flour and put it into a large Mason Cash mixing bowl with a big pinch of salt and the baking powder which she measured with an old silver plated teaspoon. She cut the butter into small pieces on a board and tipped them into the flour, stirring them around to get the butter coated. Then she rolled up the sleeves of her nylon house coat, together with those of the homemade brown cardigan she wore beneath, up to the elbow and turned on the cold water tap.