My family ran Glasgow's famous potato scone bakery

“It was 25 tiers high, one for each year of their marriage,” explains Peter. “It stood 13 feet high.”

Peter got in touch with Times Past to share some of his memories after reading our recent feature on famous Glasgow institution the City Bakeries, which moved into its Clarendon Street premises 100 years ago, in 1924.

Peter’s father Pavle ran a string of bakeries in the city, and he wonders if other readers remember them.

“My father came to the UK after the Second World War, as a displaced person,” Peter explains. “He was originally from what was then called Yugoslavia, from the part which is now Serbia.

“At first he worked on farms in Dumfries, and in Ayrshire, where he met my mother.

“With a good friend who was a baker, who lived and worked in Kilmarnock in the mid-1950s, they decided to move to Glasgow and open their own shop.”

The original bakery opened on Crown Street in the Gorbals, and a second followed on Stobcross Street in Anderston.

“By this time, they had met some other people in the same position so they all worked together, making rolls in the back shop and opening another two shops, on Vernon Street in Maryhill and Edwin Street in Ibrox,” says Peter.

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“Edwin Street was my father’s shop, and because it was slightly bigger, he made cakes and pies which supplied the small bakeries.”

By 1961, Edwin Street was too small to cope with demand, so Pavle bought a bakery in Ledard Road in Battlefield, from the original makers of Kirriemuir Gingerbread, who had moved to a factory in East Kilbride.

“He was more independent now from the other guys, but they were still friends till their dying days,” says Peter. “My dad built up a business supplying a small chain of his own shops under the name of Vic’s Bakery, and he was all over the city with different sites in Oatlands, Anderson, Govanhill, Finnieston and Carmyle.

“When I left school in 1973, I came in as an apprentice and when my father retired in 1991, me and my brother Michael took over the running of the business.”

In 1988, Vic’s Bakery established a 10,000 square foot factory in Harriet Street, Rutherglen.

By this point, the company was operating 13 shops and employing 65 people, supplying cakes, rolls, pastries and pies across the city.

“We had a great reputation for being able to supply a birthday cake at a moment’s notice,” says Peter, adding with a laugh: “It is amazing how many people forget someone's birthday.

“Over the year’s trends changed and people wanted more than just a simple birthday cake, it had to be something special.”

Another change, recalls Peter, happened in the late 90s.

“Bakeries became more like takeaways, and most of our shops were too small to do this type of thing so we moved more towards the wholesale market and found a niche in the market for potato scones,” he smiles.

“At one point, we were manufacturing 65,000 packets of potato scones per week.”                                                                                                                                       

Do you remember Vic's Bakery? What are your memories of Glasgow’s old bakeries? Get in touch with your stories and photos by emailing ann.fotheringham@glasgowtimes.co.uk or write to Ann Fotheringham, Glasgow Times, 125 Fullerton Drive, Glasgow G32 8FG.