ROMANCE OF A BUN.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 122, 21 May 1909, Page 3

ROMANCE OF A BUN.

One of the most curious'customs connected with the observance of Lent is (recently remarked the London Daily Chronicle) that obtaining at the sign of the "Widow's Son," known more familiarly in Bromley-by-Bbw as "The Bun House." Each year when Good Friday brings along the *good old hardy "hot cross buns," one of these danties is added to a cluster of dust-laden objects that once were also buns.

The cluster-—which gives one the impression at the first glance of some queer fruit that iseems to want an exceptional time for drying and seasoning—is suspended from the roof of the tavern named, in a sort of wire basket. The bun that is added every Good Friday to this funeral pile bears stamped upon it the year of its birth. The 1909 bun, placed in position recently in all the brown healthy glow of a recent twenty minutes of hot gas oven,, makes the seventieth by direct descent. Only the 1908 bun out of the other sixty-nine now bears any visible resemblance to the seventieth, for the smoke that steadily rolls ceilingwards, has' so changed the complexions of the other buns that they might be merely shaped pads of soot. Apart from that, 'however, the buns show remarkable vitality. Two alone —and they must be quite the first couple of the batch—show distinct signs of decomposition and decay. The quaint custom evolved itself thus. Years ago the tavern was a private house, where lived a widow and her only son. In ~spite of the tears and prayers of his mother, the boy would be a sailor, like many another before and since. So one unlucky Good Friday he left home, telling his mother that he would come back the following year in time to eat a hot-cross bun. The day came, but not the sailorlad, and. his mother with a sigh laid aside the bun that he had promised to eat. As each anniversary of the day of sad memories came round, the poor mother set aside the bun ior her absent boy. And so, seventy long years have gone by. The sailor son lies, doubtless, in the sailor's grave, but the custom of reserving the bun year by year has been kept alive.