THE Matthiae Bakery's street clock in Kew Road is stuck at thirty-five minutes past six, yet like the undisturbed cake stands arranged in the window display below it, the frozen clock sort of whispers.

To any top deck passengers who give the old bakery a second glance as their bus crawls past towards Richmond Station, from the silver-on-midnight-blue Art Deco shop faade comes a hush of bygone splendour.

For various reasons (good and bad) Matthiae's bakery has been in the local news over the past few years. First in 2001 when the business that opened in the early 1920s closed for good as expensive business rates, a new bus lane and competition from supermarkets coaxed Richard Matthiae, the son of its original founder, into retirement. And more recently when a local councillor staged a mini campaign for Richmond upon Thames Council to adopt the Food Law Enforcement Service Plan so the "abandoned" iced and tiered cakes could be removed from the shop window.

Julia Dunlop, nee Matthiae, has archived it all. In a scrapbook started by her daughter, Julia keeps photographs, menus (many dating from the war years), receipts, business letters and every single published newspaper clipping relating to the bakery that was started by her parents and which served greater Richmond as a caterer, banquet hall, meeting place and baker for more than 80 years.

Julia's father, Reg, bought the shop in 1920 with his brother Fred when they moved to Richmond from Merton with their mother, sister and another brother. One of the brothers started a grocery shop down the road.

In the early 1930s Julia's mother came to the bakery to work as an accountant and shop manageress.

"She married my father in 1936. Then my father, his brother and my mother expanded and rebuilt the bakery," says Julia.

The main bakery was on the ground floor along with the central entrance to the banquet room and ballroom and the catering department was on the far right side. A caf and banquet room made up the middle floor above the bakery and an Art Deco ballroom was on the top floor.

"There was a beautiful Terrazzo staircase," says Julia, describing the detail with which the classic Art Deco interior was constructed.

"We lived here," she says, pointing to the living quarters above the bakery.

"My parents were very worried. The war started and they had just built this new building with a glass ceiling, it was very Art Deco throughout. Glass panels were fitted into the ceiling. Any vibrations could bring the whole ceiling down.

"The ballroom had floor-to-ceiling wood panelling. There were big square lights on the ceiling and in the caf there were Lloyd Loom chairs and armchairs and square tables with glass tops."

Artistic shots of Julia's father helping customers, her mother at the till, her brother Richard learning the trade as a boy and one of Julia as a girl skipping outside the bakery all bear a 1950s TIME magazine flair.

"In the 50s there was a company doing a series of books on all the trades all over the world," Julia reveals, saying she doesn't think the books were ever published. "They followed us with their cameras everywhere. That was when it was really buzzing. Things were still going on as normal."

"My father died in 1978 and my brother was already taking it over at that time. My mother was still working there aged 80 plus when she died in 1986.

The subsequent closure of the bakery in 2001 and sale of the property, which completes on December 2, has been difficult for Julia.

"I had a real battle with myself, but time moves on."

"It was their baby that they could not give up, working right up to the last. It was their life."

Julia's brother, who now lives in Hampton, worked at the bakery from age 24 to the time of his retirement five years ago. Julia, however, was never tempted to take up the family trade.

"My mother used to say, 'do not come into this business, it's no work for a woman.' She was always in the shop doing bits and pieces."

Listening to Julia's romantic stories about how things were "in those days" it seems Matthiae's Bakery bowed out in time with the end of an era.

Looking at the black and white photographs of mothers pushing prams the size of a small country and old ladies chatting away while queuing for a fresh loaf of bread, I find the images of community cosiness so mesmerising. But I can't help but think that that was then, and Tesco Metro is now.

"It was a very big thing in Richmond. It was the place everyone used for any function - either on site or we would bring the food and chairs, whatever was needed to the function.

"In those days bakers used to work through the night. There was a pastry chef, a cook for wedding cakes, another for tarts and pies then the night bakers would come in. Laws eventually came in which meant bakers could not work through the night anymore so they would come in at 4am to have the fresh bread ready.

"Mothers on their way home with their children from school would park outside and run in to buy their tortoise loaf then go off home.

"My mother would do the tills then at 6pm it was everybody out. There would be people knocking on the doors and my father would let them in to buy their bread. As they left he would open the door and help them on their way out."

Childhood memories of a baker's daughter include making deliveries with the van drivers "to all the little cafes, the town hall and the factories.

"There was a poppy factory in Petersham. In those days people used to have elevenses. Little old ladies would make the sandwiches for the factory workers.

"We were allowed to go in the back door, the back door at Kew Gardens and the ice rink," she recalls.

Above the entrance to the caf three attractive signs still hang advertising the old caf's expertise in the realms of Pastrycooks, Confectioners and in the centre, Maids of Honour.

"Maids of honour is a puff pastry special to Richmond. It is a pastry base with a cheese, almondy egg mixture inside. We had a secret recipe that ferments for 12 hours before putting it into the bases. Newens bakery in Kew had their own secret recipe. There was always a lot of fun between my father and Mr Newens. They had a friendly rivalry about the pastries that lasted for years."

Reg Matthiae brought new items into his pastry repertoire to adapt to the cosmopolitan community. Richmond Adult College, which used to be located down the road, meant foreign students were walking past the bakery window every day.

"There were French and German students and we even had a German pastry chef.

He made German cheesecake and Black Forest gateau.

The students would walk past and see something in the window from their own hometown, but once the college closed down that was something else that just sort of went," Julia says with a trailing voice.

As of yet no planning application has been logged with Richmond council to develop 82-84 Kew Road. With a heavy heart Julia says she suspects the new owners will convert her family's old bakery into some sort of residential development and that she hopes they will do all they can to preserve the beautiful Art Deco architecture.