> Some people bake from cold but I've never had good results with that method.
> Cheers
> Graham

Thanks for your check-recipe, Graham
I used it with just the plain unbleached hard bread flour and that
simultaneously cleared the oven, yeast and flour of being at fault.
Only one culprit left -- the bag of multi-grain flour which must have
come from a dud (or protein-reduced) batch as I'm now sure it was that
which was wrecking my efforts.
Best wishes and thanks again .. your recipe produced totally delicious
bread! I handmixed it but next time I'll try doing the first mixing
stage in my daughter's bread machine before transferring to the baking
tin and then to oven after the second rise.
Cheers