It is shortly after midnight when Kevin Gracie starts his working day in readiness to provide fresh bread and bakery lines to Trafalgar residents.

The early starts are part of the daily ritual for a fourth-generation baker who turned 70 recently and a week later was baking 200 dozen hot cross buns in a morning.

Kevin was 16-years-old when he followed in the family tradition.

While there was an expectation to carry on the work of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, he said he wanted to be a baker.  And the tradition has continued to a fifth generation with his daughter Joanne currently in training.

Ten years at William Angliss College in Melbourne was testament to his commitment – in those days required to undertake two separate five year apprenticeships in bread making and pastry.

“I like the pastry cooking, there’s a bigger variety and you can experiment with flavours,” he said.

Under his father’s guidance at the family’s Newborough bakery, Kevin completed his apprenticeships and when his father retired, decided to start his new venture in Trafalgar.

There was no bakery in Trafalgar when he became the first tenant of the newly opened Giles Arcade in 1978.

The arcade became a one stop shop for locals with a baker, butcher, greengrocer, hairdresser, haberdasher and fish and chip shop.

“There are still quite a few customers that have been coming here since I started,” he said.