Where were you on March 19^th 2005? Well you certainly were not at the annual Pork Pie Appreciation Society competition because it had been put back by three weeks to accommodate top pie man Stuart Booths wedding. Now 2005 had two bits of good news, firstly the happy occasion that Stuart was tying the knot and secondly, having missed out several times before, I could now finally attend the pork pie competition along with my badminton pal Krakatoa Keith as a fully fledged pie judger extraordinaire. What follows is pretty much fact, it may have been ‘tickled’ here and there but I can assure you that no pie club officials were harmed for the want of a good story.

Now have you ever missed out on something that you really wanted to take part in because if you have then you will have lots of sympathy with KK and myself who were invited once again to judge at the 2006 extravaganza only to find out the terrible news that neither of us could attend due to prior engagements. KK and myself both play badminton at Greetland along with long serving member and Pork Pie Topgafferboss Kevin Booth. After finding out we could not attend in 2006 we swiftly decided to take up the matter with him to ask for a postponement to a more suitable date (March is always a busy month for both of us and anyway we didn’t want to miss out on any possible free gratis Timmy Taylors Golden Best).

We tackled him during a badminton session break but perhaps picked a bad time to mention it as at that moment he seemed more interested in attending to the pie and peas that he had brought for tonight’s supper and also because ‘Cautious Carol’ the badminton clubs organiser, treasurer, secretary and chief bottle washer was waiting to collect his subscriptions. It’s typical that the very night he had chosen to treat us to supper we needed to press him for a postponement, still we donned our sponsored tee shirts and set off into battle to lobby him vigorously. We had a good case and with our persuasive manor we were sure he would have no option but to agree. Yes a slight delay for our benefit was not a lot to ask for or so we thought---we thought wrong!!!

I can’t postpone the annual competition he boomed, spilling a good twenty pennarth of Taylors Landlord down the front of his shirt. It’s in March, we always have it in March, it’s all booked and sorted, April has the F A cup semi finals, the boat race and the Grand National, I can’t put it back a month just for you two, what a silly crackpot daft suggestion. Hang on a minute we countered, you postponed it last year for your brothers wedding!! We thought we had him over a barrel with high fives all round even reinforcing the point by quoting a March clash with the Crufts dog show could be avoided but oh dear that only seemed to make matters worse and as his face reddened, he slavered like a prize winning best of breed British Bulldog and with steam coming out of his ears we quickly decided to leave him alone. The two of us then went into a huddle (if two people can form a huddle) to discuss a foolproof way of making sure we attended the 2007 bash.

Well, I have to say we had some strange looks from the rest of the badminton crowd as we retired to a quiet corner and tried to come up with ideas that would cast iron guarantee us an acceptable March 2007 date. We didn’t know how far in advance the dates were confirmed but we knew we only had a few months to come up with a ‘cunning plan’ to move the competition back a month to April. We tried persuading, pleading, bribery, plying with alcohol and even saying that if he moved it back we would buy him a huge 45 gallon drum of mint sauce but he just shook his head, closed his eyes, waved his arms, mumbled, turned and walked away (you try doing that).

Then we suddenly had a brainwave and thought hang on, he has set a precedent by postponing it for family reasons. With that we chased after Kevin at pace with some swiftly conjured up soft toys giving instructions to pass them on to brother Stuart and his lovely wife Joanne in the hope of encouraging some pronto paediatric passion that would necessitate a March Christening and delay the competition to our advantage. At this moment we are still awaiting the results!!!

Crustily yours's Dilapidated Dave (irregular pie judger).

P.S. If you normally attend the pie competition and find that you are expecting a happy event next March don’t blame me just get on the phone and tell Kevin!!