When Jeff Beattie lost his wife to leukaemia, he was left with a promise to raise their children and found an unexpected lifeline in baking. Beattie lost his wife, Elaine, to chronic lymphatic leukaemia in September 1987. The dairy farmer turned to baking after losing his wife to leukaemia, finding an outlet in the kitchen while raising their four children. “I wanted to know why he would take a young mother from my children,” Beattie recalled. Then came local shows, country shows and eventually the Ekka.