At the age of nine the author was taken into the 'care' of three supremely eccentric Welsh aunts in Carmarthen The title is a reference to the weekly cake lavishly baked by them and served up to the local jackdaws on the kitchen table For the young Lewis, nourished on relentlessly plain fare, this event came to symbolise the forbidden pleasures of life Stammering schoolboy and adult writer, he survived spiritualism, the local squire and the army