It's ironic that it used to be only the rich who could afford the finer milled flour that went into 'white bread' and the poor had to have the rough or coarsly ground flour that made 'brown bread'.

Now white plastic bread is generic and it's the brown stuff with the bits left in that costs a lot.

Since WWI, British millers and breadmakers used flour with added chalk powder to make it whiter and give the people added calcium, a necessity with the WWII rationing.

I once toured a flour mill when I was 18 (big modern jobby owned by Hovis) and I'm surprised at how much I retained from that visit!

Did you know that mills are highly explosive?

All the tiny particles of flour hang in the air. Add a lighted match to that and it's kerblooey - goodbye flour mill. Could this be a reason they were all built so far out of town and down their own little lanes?

LTS