Today’s recipe is a departure from the usual. It contains nothing home grown, nothing seasonal and yet it is one of my favourite and most frequently made recipes. The reason for this change of tack is that my Dad died a few weeks ago, his funeral is on Monday and I have spent every evening this week reading through his handwritten memoirs piecing together the eulogy I will give.

Dad was a proud Welshman and his memories of his childhood are vivid and emotive. He was born in Swansea on April 25^th 1935 and was brought up in the suburb of Cockett by his father, Herbert, who worked for an iron and steel merchant, and his mother, Winifred (née Lewis), who left school at 14 and was a maid in the Mayor’s Parlour in Swansea, until she married my grandfather in 1929. The house was on a road on the top of the hill (Town Hill) above Swansea Bay, and you had a fine view of its golden sweep from the upstairs back bedrooms. When we went there as children during the summer holidays, the sound of seagulls and the smell of the sea were ever present.