Some of us are old enough to remember visiting Communist countries in eastern Europe before Perestroika in 1989 — the unsmiling service, bread queues, the feeling that as a 'the customer you were always wrong.'

As for taking your custom elsewhere, there was no 'elsewhere'. The state owned everything.

Peter Towpik, 27, owner of Marcopolo Bakery, spent his early childhood in such economic conditions, but emigrated to England from a mountain village near Wroclow, in southern Poland, when he was 17. Then, after a stint of working for other bakers — and saving his money assiduously — he started his own business in November 201.

He said: "I left Poland and moved to London immediately after finishing at bakery school. But my father was a baker, so I grew up in the business. In fact it is all thanks to my dad that I have this business now. He taught me to love baking. And that is the important thing: loving it."

Now he employs five people — including his father, Janusz — at his spacious premises on the Elm Farm Business Park in Grove.

His mother, Miriloa, also helps out, as doe wife Agata, who, when I came to visit was manning a market stall a mile or two down the road in Wantage.

I was there because, though I know little of the art of baking, I pride myself on knowing a good loaf of rye bread when I taste one.

And I had discovered that his loaves — which for the last year or two I have been buying on Thursdays from another stall at Witney market — are as good as any.

We sat on a convenient seat outside the bakery (no chairs inside because, as Mr Towpik explained, it is a workplace, not designed for sitting about in) and discussed his passion for baking.

He was a man on a mission, I gathered, the mission being to convert customers away from any idea that bread is simply a vehicle for something else — jam perhaps, or cheese, or bacon, but is instead itself the very staff of life: something tasty and nourishing.

But why Marcopolo? Why not a name more Polish sounding?

Mr Towpik said: “Because it is not only Polish bread that we make and sell. Like the Venetian explorer Marcopolo I have travelled around and now we produce all sorts of original specialities, including focaccia, brioche, croissant and sourdough. And of course pasties and Chelsea buns."

He added: “Most of the ingredients are local. For instance we use flour milled at the Wessex Mill in Wantage and the interesting thing about that is that much of the wheat is grown right here at Elm Farm — which belongs to the Smith brothers who own this business park.

“The rye comes from Hungerford, which is not far away either, and the butter we use comes from the Upper Norton Jersey Cream Company at Church Hanborough, also not far away.”

The baking happens overnight in two electric ovens with stone layers between the shelves (Important for the flavour, I was told) which were Mr Towpik's first investment at about £10,000 each.

He said: "I took no credit but instead financed it all out of savings. Now sales are going well and the business is growing year on year. People like the traditional taste of good quality baking — but of course they are careful with their money at the moment."

On the one hand the recession has been working against the business during the three years in which Marcopolo has been trading.

On the other, British consumers have an increasing appetite for good food from all over the world, thanks largely to the influence of TV chefs.

But Mr Towpik maintains that once they have tried his bread — at £2.30 for, say, a large light rye loaf — many are hooked.

He said: "About half my business now comes from retail, selling at markets and directly from the bakery here. The other half is wholesale. Now I am beginning to sell it to restaurants, too, because there is a growing demand for speciality breads there."

It struck me that for someone who had got to work at 4.30am that morning to oversee overnight baking operations, there seemed to be a daunting amount of daytime marketing work to be done too. When does he sleep? "Whenever I can," he said.

And how does he view Britain now, after 10 years here? “I think of it as home," he said.

"I met my wife in London and my son Phillip, who is seven, goes to school in Wantage. I visited Poland for the first time last year and yes, I found the baking business very much commercialised there. No local, country bakers.

"After the fall of Communism only people with pockets containing fat wallets could take advantage of privatisation.

“But my father, who became my first employee in 2011, and I, always reckoned there would be a demand in England for proper country baking."

Mr Towpik now also runs baking schools at his bakery. Such is his passion for bread-making.