HARVEST TRADITIONS IN SPITE OF COVID

Paul Hollywood might even have offered a handshake to Loreto Preparatory School's four-year-old bakers Aine and Anna after they prepared a harvest wheatsheaf loaf.

The traditional decorative loaf was part of the annual harvest collection of food parcels for Manchester's homeless refuge Cornerstone.

Loreto Prep maintained their long held tradition of thanking the good Lord for this season's bounty despite Covid and the restrictions on holding a Mass for parents.

Loreto Prep's Early Years Assistant Emma Packman said: "The harvest festival is one of the highlights of our calendar and essential to uphold."

She added with a smile: "The secret to baking with three-to-five-year-olds is patience and, one has to admit, making something decorative rather than necessarily edible."

Loreto Preparatory School Headmistress Anne Roberts: "This year more than ever wonderful charities such as Cornerstone who do so much for the city's disadvantaged need our support and I'm delighted our parents were so generous despite an unusually low key celebration."

Young baker Anna concluded: "I don't watch Bake Off. It's past my bed time."

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