Serving the Teesside Business Community | 31
Harry Pearson: The Business Buzz
Teesside-born author Harry Pearson is a former sports columnist for the Guardian. He’s
a former travel feature writer for Conde Naste Traveller and Contributing Editor of GQ,
and has written six books, including The Far Corner: A Hazy Dribble Through North-East
Football which was runner-up in the 1995 Sports Book of the Year awards.
In his exclusive column for Tees Business, Harry recalls his family’s fondness for
pies, as the legendary Upex pie makes a popular return...
Don’t underestimate
the Power of the Pie
“There are few things
that attract brand
loyalty like a pie.”
W
hen Upex pies relaunched
last November after a 20year absence from Teesside’s
culinary landscape, hungry
punters practically knocked the shop over
in their clamour to get one. Owner Steve
Davies sold 1,400 in a matter of a few hours.
Personally I am not surprised. Upex pies
have been around for over a century and
there are few things that attract brand loyalty
like a pie. I should know, my own family
was savagely divided by what can only be
described as pork pie civil war.
There were other gastronomic
disagreements amongst us, admittedly. My
father’s family were committed to tomato
ketchup and Branston pickle, while my
mother’s would entertain only Hammonds
Yorkshire Sauce and Piccalilli; things could
get a bit heated over the Lowcocks v Alpine
debate when it came to lemonade and
dandelion and burdock; many a trip to Whitby
ended in an acrimonious dispute over the
merits of favourite chip shops, and when it
came to beer, the impossibility of finding a
pub that served both Cameron’s Strongarm
and Vaux Samson meant separate Saturday
nights for a couple of branches. It was the
pork pies that were the cause of the bitterest
trouble, though. When it came to them it
was The Beatles v The Stones, Blur v Oasis,
Mods v Rockers. You had to pick a side.
You see, my granddad and his brothers
grew up in Smeaton Street. As lads from
the heart of the Boro they had – naturally
- pledged pie-allegiance to Newboulds at a
young age. While Joe and George stayed in
Middlesbrough, my grandfather married a
girl from Marske and settled there. Later his
daughter, my mother, moved to Great Ayton.
And that was when the trouble started,
because our house was 50 yards from
Petch’s butchers.
At some point my grandfather was lured
into buying a pork pie from Petch’s and pretty
soon they were the only pork pies he’d
give house room to. He might have stayed
silent on the matter, but, like a man recently
converted to a new religion by a miracle, he
just couldn’t keep the good news to himself.
It all kicked off round my great-gran’s house
on Christmas Day when I was six. It was a
tiny terraced house, the living room so small
the only way all of us could fit in it was with
kids sitting on knees and men folk arranged
shoulder-to-shoulder around the walls. We all
had our place. You could tell where the men
stood even when they weren’t there by the
height of the stains their Brylcreme left on
the wallpaper.
At some point my great-gran expressed
the view that a nice pork pie would do her for
New Year’s Eve.
“You want to have a one from Petch’s,” my
granddad announced.
“What are you talking about?” Uncle Joe
said. “Have you gone looie? I’ll get her one
from Newboulds.”
“The only thing she’s getting from you is a
load of tripe,” my granddad replied.
By this stage my mother had started to
wrestle me into my coat and signalled for my
Dad to go out and get the engine of the Riley
warmed up. She recognised fighting talk
when she heard it.
Things might have stayed at simmering
point, but at this point my grandma’s sister’s
husband who hailed from Skelton, worked
down Boulby potash mine and had a voice so
loud and deep it sounded like an explosion in
a cave, growled out his opinion that the pork
pies from the butcher in Sleights knocked all
others on Planet Earth into a cocked hat.
What happened next I cannot honestly
say, for my mum had hustled me out the
door. From reports it seemed the police got
matters under control fairly quickly once they
arrived on the scene.
Later my Dad suggested that “Blahblah’s
Pies – they’re worth decking your brotherin-law for” would make a good advertising
slogan. As far as I know, it’s still available, if
anyone wants it.