THEY’VE been supplying sweet treats to customers for years and now a bakery is celebrating a landmark anniversary.

This year marks 35 years since Ian and Valerie Temple opened Sgt Bun Bakery on Lanehouse Rocks Road in Weymouth.

There has been a bakery on the site for around 70 years and staff are still using some of the original equipment, such as the brick ovens.

But plenty has changed – Ian and Valerie have expanded the shop area, and have also watched the decline of other traditional bakeries. But they are hopeful for the future., and plan to keep going for many years yet.

Valerie, 70, said: “We want to thank all our present, past and future customers and wholesale customers for all their support over the years. It’s nice that so many keep coming back. We get holiday makers who return every year and we’ve seen people grow from schoolchildren to adults with their own kids.”

Ian, 73, left school in 1958 with aspirations to become an electrician. But there was only one place hiring where he lived and that was a bakery, where he had previously worked during the summer.

“They took me on for six months and I stayed for 18 years,” he said. Later, the couple made the decision to strike out on their own.“We wanted to try working for ourselves, instead of working for someone else,” Valerie said. “And we wanted to move to Weymouth. It’s so nice here.”They found the bakery on Lanehouse Rocks and chose a name – a decision Ian said has made a lot of people question whether he has a military background.

He said: “In those days, bakeries were always called ‘Smith and sons’ or something like that, and I wanted something a bit more quirky. At the time there was a song in the charts called Captain Beaky and that made me come up with the name Captain Bun. But it didn’t sound quite right, so we dropped him down a few ranks to Sergeant.”

In the early 1980s there were eight or nine bakeries in Weymouth, Valerie said, but they have seen the number dwindle over the years. Running Sgt Bun is a round-the-clock operation, with Ian starting things off at 10pm, while two members of staff come in at 5am to finish off the orders. In the daytime, birthday cakes and cake slices are made.

While Ian has cut down on his hours, he has no intention of retiring altogether just yet.

“I’ll just keep going. Most bakers work well into their 80s. To me it’s not really work. It’s creative, and I really enjoy it.”