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The Great Fair of Saint Thomas Ye Martyre is heldin May and October in Haverfordwest. Untilrecentlyit was situatedon the Green, (loads of complaints in the local paper), close to St Thomas a Beckett's Church, beforemoving to the edge of the town.

Fourteen years ago Itook my twin grandsons to the opening of the May Fair, when they were four years old.Suspendedabove the crowds, they watchedas the Town crier rang his bell, the vicar said a prayer and arichly caparisoned Mayordeclared the revelry could begin. Harry and Oliver twirled round and around, unaware they were taking part in an ancient custom.

There were hot dogs and candy floss,but nobear baiting or cock fights and no slabs of sticky gingerbread either, which were a feature of the medieval fairs.

To provide sweetness and moistness, iron rich molasses or golden syrup was used in the gingerbread.Nita does not have a gingerbread recipe in her book but she does have one for Ginger Cake.

Aswell as ginger, cinnamon is used. Spices, highly prized and priced in the Middle Ageswere introducedto this country by the Knights Templars when they returned from their foreign travels. (No Gift Shoppesthen).

Nita's recipe is undated, but the inclusion of powdered egg suggests it was wartime. I've substituted a fresh egg.

Method:

Take 12 ounces of Self Raising flour, half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda, 1 ounce of powdered ginger, 1 ounce of cinnamon, half a pint of hot water, 1 egg, 2 tablespoonfuls of treacle or syrup, quarter pound oflard (butter for me,darlings), quarter pound of brown sugar. (I would add a good spoonful of marmalade for the flavour andthe chewy piecesof peel).

The next part is simplicity itself, which is whatI like. Put butter, sugar, treacle in a bowl and pour over the hot water. Mix and allow to cool. Add beaten egg and the rest of the ingredients. Mix again. Bake in a moderate oven for about 45 minutes. (Molasses burns easily, so be careful). I have made this with honey insteadof treacle and it's good. I mix the juice and grated rind of an orange with icing sugarand pour it over the cooled cake. This is not Atkins, so don't worry about the carbs girls.

I'll start with an apology: I mixed Rogation Sunday (yesterday) with Whit Sunday (June 12). What with all these holidays (Early Spring Bank Holiday May 2, Spring Bank Holiday May 30,) I am becoming totally confused and it's nothing to do with Nita's Ginger Wine, either.

I don't care for red wine and I can't say white wine is much better, but I'll accept a glass of home made wine any day. Fifty years ago, when Peterused to grow vegetables he bordered the patch with parsley, which grew thick and frilly.Neighbourshad a bunchwhen they were making cawl. (Fishguard is a small place and word soon got round that wehad large quantities of the stuff).

A lot of superstitions surround the growing of parsley and some believe you must plant it when the moon is waxing or waning, or the tides are high or low or you've let the cat out early. Whatever.Actually,Peter thinks his success was due to throwing the left over fertiliser into the border before scattering the parsley seed. Anyway.

One day a neighbour decided I should makeParsley Wine. (I'm so malleable). I'd not made wine before so she gave me some tips. One was touse glass or stoneware in preparing the wine, never plastic. The other wastofloat the yeast on a piece of toast. Stirring the yeast into the liquid makes the wine cloudy andthen you haveto strain it over and over. After a few months (when the wine had matured- I was doing this properly, cofiwch chi,)theneighbour was presented with a bottle.It was pronouncedgood, it hada kick, it was clear as a bell and akin to champagne. (If I'd known she was such a judge I wouldn't have attempted it).

I've tasted carrot wine (liked it a lot), potato wine (very good) and ginger wine, whichI like but is not to everyone's taste.

Now, I have a problem: I tinker with recipes. I made my mother a raisin cake and she asked two friends to tea. These twobaked for Cake Stalls, Bring and Buys, Choir Suppers.My mother said they were delirious about my cake, could they have the recipe. Ihad no idea what I'd used, because sometimes I'll add a spoonful of ginger marmalade or a spoonful of syrup or a few tablespoons of sherry, so I am not an exact cook, but as long as the food tastes good...Now before I forget, here'sthe Ginger Wine recipe and remember to have aschooner with a slice of raisin cake.

1 gallon of water, 1 pound of raisins,3 pounds of brown sugar, 2 ounces ofroot ginger, chopped finely.Place in a large container(s). Boil the water, pour over the ingredients, stir well.Allow to cool (just warm)and float 2 teaspoons of fresh yeast on a slice of toast on the liquid. You could now add the juice of an orange or a lemon, if you want to tinker. Next day, remove toast and yeast and discard. Strain liquid into another container and leave a fortnight. Stir each day. It will smell gorgeous. Keep itcovered but not tightly in case it goes 'Whoosh' in the night and gives you a fright. Leave a couple of months, strain into bottles and cork. Iechyd Da or Salute!.

Woken in the night by my own snoresI heardfox cubs making a 'screch' (screach)in the garden. Slipped back intowooziness but then woke again.My right ear was aching from lying on it. Tried lying on my back and took a long time to drop off again;howcan you feel cream-crackeredand still not sleep?

Apparently, the concept ofsleeping foreight hours a nightis a modern one. Years ago people slept in fits and starts, got up to throw a log on the fire, get the cows in or gnaw at a ham bone.That was before some busy body decided we neededeight hours sleep a night. (Like the person whohad no idea how much fruit we should consume but, to cover her back and save us all from scurvy, said five pieces. That created more questions, likewhat constitutes a 'piece' of fruit.)

Japanese studies on students have shown that we are tired at certain key moments in the day: nine in the morning, one o'clock in the afternoon and five o'clock in the evening. (I've not conducted 'in-depth' studies, but I've noticed students are tired most of the time).

Anyway, I was tired at nine o'clock and still tired at ten o'clock, even after an omelette, a banana and four cups of tea.

Well, like the cure for writer's block, I tried working through it. I put half a leg of lamb, studded with rosemary and thyme from the garden andgarlic cloves from Norfolk, into the oven, plus potatoes for roasting. I prepared a saucepan of new potatoes (now forty five pence a pound, improving the taste no end) anddried peas and carrots. (Marilyn Monroe andIlike food tolook pretty on the plate). The point I am making is, Istill felt like a shattered plaster Madonna.

Then I saw the pot of honey with three big pieces of preservedginger in it. I poured two teaspoons of the honey and ginger liquid into a cup and added hot water, stirred and drank. Now, the vital ingredient here is the ginger, because it is reviving, stimulating the circulation,andI think it did for me.

I learnt about ginger when I went to a Chinese acapuncturist.Whatever maladyI mentioned, such as feeling the cold or having a cold, he would recommend ginger, which is also good for nausea.I'm never without it now.

Tomorrow, I will give you Nita's recipe for Ginger Wine.

Tan hynny, tawelwch i pawb trwy'rnos Sul Gwyn. On this Whit SundayI wish you all peace throughout the night.

Dark Fantasy author Ashley J. Barnard interviews me on HER blog today:

The Reluctant Blogger

Wherein we talk about Gila Monsters, Flying Horses and writing. Stop by and comment!

When I think about leadership, I will always remember family stories told to me about my Welsh grandfather. Graham Roach was a miner who worked his way up to be the pits safety officer, a job which often involved dealing with painful and disfiguring injuries. People are often aware of mining disasters, but often, they are not so conscious of the accidents that happen regularly, every week even. How, for example, my grandfather watched a slice of stone fall down and cut off the four fingers of a man who had been resting his hand on the seam. The stories of these eponymous accidents and how my grandfather dealt with them, were passed along the family grapevine. My grandfather told my uncle who in turn told my mother who in turn told me.

One famous story tells how my grandfather himself was injured. The night was when a conveyor belt snapped and wrapped itself round the leg of my grandfather and another man.

The first man was screaming: For the love of God, get it off me, boys.

My grandfather, never one to waste words, simply said: Me too, boys. He was always a man of few words, and the story made us all laugh, even though it meant hours of agony for my grandfather. The first man was weeping and wailing and calling out for a doctor. My grandfather simply repeated: Me too.

On another shift, my grandfather was underground when the mine flooded. Down one tunnel, some of the machinery had been swallowed up by the water. At the end of the tunnel was a long black pool. Taking off his boots, my grandfather readied himself. Now he dived into the water-filled shaft meeting the waters cold slap. He dived down feeling his way along the side of the shaft in the dark. His hand blundered on something metallic and sharp. He came up with the drill and worked all night in his wet clothes.

It doesnt surprise me that during World War Two, my grandfather had one of the most dangerous jobs in the airforce as a rear gunner. In the airforce and in his job at the mine, he always seemed to be the one to take on the difficult task, the thing that no one else wanted to do. He is altogether the kind of leader that I admire. Not a showy or conspicuous man, but nevertheless a man who knows how to act in a crisis. A man who doesnt make a fuss when something goes wrong, but simply waits in silence for help to come. A man who does unpleasant tasks, not relishing them, but knowing that they have to be done and that he must lead by example.

Wars are not only fought along battlelines, but also at home. And while cultural and political tensions are played out on the field of war, they also show themselves in the towns and cities that soldiers are fighting to protect.

One sad story of the home front was told to me by my Welsh grandmother, Norma Roach. it told the tale a family of Italian immigrants, who during World War Two, lived in Maesteg, a small coal town in South Wales. Italians from the Apennine Mountains migrated to the UK during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and many of them settled in Wales. The Welsh Valley people became used to Italian cafs and ice-cream parlours.

One such Italian family was the Bellis, who set up an Italian caf in Maesteg, the town where my Welsh family lived for hundreds of years. They were well liked in town, but during World War Two, a policy of internment was brought in for immigrants from Italy, Germany and other enemy countries. After Mussolini declared war in 1940, the British government saw Italian immigrants as enemy aiens and potential spies. To control this unknown quantity, the government decided to send these immigrants to Canada where they could do less harm.

This meant, however, breaking up families. The older Bellis who were Italian citizens were rounded up and put on a boat to Canada the SS Arandora Star, while members of the Belli family who were born in Wales had to stay behind.

The ironic thing was that the Bellis journeying to Canada on the Arandora Star never completed their journey. It was sunk in the Atlantic by a German submarine. There were over 1200 German and Italian internees on board, and over 800 people died including the Bellis.