Debbie’s delicious recipe

By Debbie Dickinson

Wake mum up to a freshly baked batch of Scones this Mother’s Day! These take less than 10 mins to prepare, just 10 mins to bake, are a lot easier than you think - and they are delicious!!! As always with my recipes, try adding different flavours – herbs/ spices or, in this case, dried fruit or chocolate chips? The secret to fabulous scones is to not ‘overmix’ – just do enough and no more! What you need: 200g Self Raising Flour 50g Unsalted Butter 25g Caster Sugar 100ml Milk Optional flavours – herbs/spices/ cheese/dried fruit/chocolate chips

What to do: Preheat your oven to 190°C Fan/ and grease or lightly flour a baking sheet. Combine together the self-raising flour with a pinch of salt and rub in the unsalted butter using just your fingertips. If you grate the butter or cut into tiny cubes it’s much easier. You will end up with a fine breadcrumb texture.

Stir in the caster sugar. Slowly mix in the milk until the mix comes together as a dough.

Add any additional flavours now. Tip on to a lightly floured work surface and press the mixture gently until it becomes flat and about 2cm thick.

Use cutters to cut out your scones – I prefer quite small round cutters. Squeeze any leftover dough back together, flatten again, and cut out more scones until all the dough has been used.

Brush the top of the scones with a little milk or beaten egg. Bake in the hot oven for approx. 10 minutes until golden brown and the scones have risen nicely.

The scones can be eaten warm or left to cool completely. We like to pull them in half and serve with jam and cream (which you put on first is up to you!!!)

Enjoy xxx

ODD FELLOWS (AND LADIES) INDEED

This piece is not about football! Well, not really. During the Covid-19 period, we’ve seen friendships and interest groups move online where feasible, with the Web, Zoom and whatsapp the key lifelines.

trip back after defeat. As with such groups, the Invicta Whites gives structure to former footballing lonely hearts. Now amid the pandemic, with the Dover-toLeeds-via-Dartford coach grounded and the Oddfellows cheers silenced, the virtual bond is everything. In almost 20 years of decline since 2001, with fans punch-drunk from disappointments, the Invicta group has been an informal stress counselling network; quasi-Masonic brotherhood (LUFC even has its own ‘Leeds salute’); and congregation whose ‘church’ is a 210-mile hop up north. Glory days having just returned, thankfully this random network of obsessives can connect online to enjoy on-field (well, onscreen) success. And the Bielsa miracle will certainly make getting a Kent coach-load worth of match tickets a tough post-pandemic ask. When locked down, be it your nursery school Facebook group, your Stones fans Whats App group or the proud Dartford Leeds community, the emotional group link enabled by our devices is invaluable. A mental health prop, even, for members. So is there anything instructive in this? I suppose it’s just that the joy and pain of shared passions take many forms. And right now is a great time to send that speculative introduction, to take a chance on a local interest group. You may even need to found it! There could be a surprising dividend of new likeminded friends! Being an Invicta White in Dartford isn’t sensible, but it’s a lifestyle choice made before members could map-read! And the richer for that. Let’s raise a glass of Tetley’s to this and all our friendship networks out there. This is a time to stay United. Jonathan Wynne Invicta White member (fully paid-up)

A wonderful example is the curious case of the Invicta Whites. Over the past 15 years, has any half-asleep Princes Road resident looked out at 8am on a Saturday to see a full 60-seater Leeds United fans’ coach whizz by? Or maybe an Oddfellows Arms customer been bemused by multi-generational groups of Dartfordians gathered to endure Leeds’ latest TV defeat? Or, more recently, to celebrate a stylish victory! This community has its origins in East Kent but now spreads across to the county’s Yorkshire end. With over 150 active members and 450 Facebook members, the group is run slickly by committee members in Dartford, Ashford and, er, Braintree (long story). On Bayliss coaches the group makes monthly pilgrimages to home matches: match-days of camaraderie, past glories revisited, worst players lamented, on-board entertainment and that buzz at first glimpsing the stadium. And a long

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