A 90-year-old former RAF driver has helped to save his local church, after raising £30,000 through the production and sale of sausage rolls and malt loaf.

Gerry Smith, of Market Weston in west Suffolk, took up baking at the age of 80, following the death of his wife Pamela, who served as a warden at the local St Mary’s Church.

St Mary’s 12 windows were collapsing and being held up with wooden boards. In an effort to restore the church, the local community raised £100,000 to fix the windows. Smith accounted for nearly a third of this total through his baking, although other donors included the Alfred Williams Charitable Trust and the Suffolk Historic Churches Trust.

Smith, speaking to the East Anglian Daily Times, said, "The church means everything to me. Pamela and her family were all deeply involved in the church. The community has been like a family to me since she passed."

Smith, worked as a timber trader and a builder after leaving the RAF, although his baking associations go back a long way. His top-secret malt loaf recipe is reportedly 200 years old, and his great aunt once served as a baker for Queen Victoria.

"I can't tell you my secret recipes, but what I can tell you is that people absolutely love my baking and it brings me a lot of joy," Smith said.

St Mary’s church warden, Richard Chatham, said that Smith had been “wonderful”: "He's a doer and enjoys the adventure of life and he's a local man who wants to give back to the community. 

"He also understands that the church is at the centre of our community and we are here as and when people need us.

"It is this generosity of spirit to support this adventure that has kept this church alive."