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17/07/2003
Belfast visit icing on the cake for former local
A 30-year-old fruitcake has helped a former Belfast woman return home for the first time in three decades.
Sheila Resnick left her home city in 1974 for a new life in Stockport, England. However, just a couple of years previous she had bought fruit cake in Supermac on the Hillfoot Road.
Just thirty years later Sheila came across the old cake in the back of her cupboard.
Rather than consign the fruit cake to the bin, Sheila made a phone call to Allied Bakeries Ireland, the Belfast bakery which had baked the cake all those years ago.
When Managing Director Alan Hempton heard about the fruit cake, which hasn’t been produced since 1975, he took a personal interest and invited Sheila on an all-expenses-paid trip home to deliver the cake in person.
She said: "I kept the cake for years, always meaning to open it at Christmas, but I just never got around to it. Then, after many years in England, it took on a sentimental value reminding me of the happy days I enjoyed back in home in Belfast.
“Not long ago, I was having a spring clean and I came across the old cake at the back of a kitchen cupboard and decided that it was time I did something with it.
“I decided I would give the bakery a call and ask them if they wanted their cake back, and was delighted when Alan Hempton, the Managing Director, called me and invited us to go home and deliver it in person.”
During her stay, Sheila and Harry received a tour of the bakery and all her old Belfast haunts, as well as Portrush, the Mountains of Mourne, the North Coast and even Newtownards Flying Club where she once had lessons.
And during her trip to the home of Allied Bakeries, she even had time for some tea and cake…her own cake that is!
Amazingly even though the fruit cake was more than 30 years old, it was still edible!
(MB)
Sheila Resnick left her home city in 1974 for a new life in Stockport, England. However, just a couple of years previous she had bought fruit cake in Supermac on the Hillfoot Road.
Just thirty years later Sheila came across the old cake in the back of her cupboard.
Rather than consign the fruit cake to the bin, Sheila made a phone call to Allied Bakeries Ireland, the Belfast bakery which had baked the cake all those years ago.
When Managing Director Alan Hempton heard about the fruit cake, which hasn’t been produced since 1975, he took a personal interest and invited Sheila on an all-expenses-paid trip home to deliver the cake in person.
She said: "I kept the cake for years, always meaning to open it at Christmas, but I just never got around to it. Then, after many years in England, it took on a sentimental value reminding me of the happy days I enjoyed back in home in Belfast.
“Not long ago, I was having a spring clean and I came across the old cake at the back of a kitchen cupboard and decided that it was time I did something with it.
“I decided I would give the bakery a call and ask them if they wanted their cake back, and was delighted when Alan Hempton, the Managing Director, called me and invited us to go home and deliver it in person.”
During her stay, Sheila and Harry received a tour of the bakery and all her old Belfast haunts, as well as Portrush, the Mountains of Mourne, the North Coast and even Newtownards Flying Club where she once had lessons.
And during her trip to the home of Allied Bakeries, she even had time for some tea and cake…her own cake that is!
Amazingly even though the fruit cake was more than 30 years old, it was still edible!
(MB)
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