This September Bradford poet and showman Glyn Watkins will be not only celebrating his own birthday; and the birthday of Bradford born writer J.B.Priestley on the same day; he’ll also be celebrating the fact that it will be 25 years since he came up with a ‘Pie & Priestley Show, celebrating J.B.Priestley’s birthday and a Bradford meat & potato pie that defied Hitler!’.
The idea came from a radio broadcast made in September 1940, during the worst period of the Blitz. Priestley had returned to his home town of Bradford to see the results of a German bombing raid. He’d been told a small pie shop had been destroyed, along with its giant pie, that sat in the window and steamed. To his delight the shop and the pie had survived and was steaming away:
‘Every puff and jet of that steam defied Hitler, Goering, and the whole
gang of them. It was glorious.’
The show will feature stories, reading and pictures from Priestley’s life and works; will feature surprises (even to Glyn, if his past shows are anything to go by!) and includes meat & potato pie (of veggie alternative) & peas in the price of the ticket.
The show is at The Boar & Fable, North Parade, Bradford BD1 3HZ; at 1.00 pm, Sunday 10th September. Tickets are £10 inc. pie & peas. Available from The Boar & Fable, or from eventbrite (for a fee).
The below links to Ordnance Survey maps are to the National Library of Scotland’s site. You will need to close the help screen for each one. They all have a slider bar at the bottom left which allows you to fade to a modern map. The two maps sets I have used are: ‘Surveyed 1847-1850, published 1852’: and ‘Revised: 1906, Published: 1908’.
We will start from the Record Cafe at 12.00 and be back on North Parade by 17.00. The first map shows North Parade, Copy Quarry, Pipers Grave, the first station in Bradford, and a random iron foundry.
We will be going up Manchester Rd. Before the 1740 Turnpike Road was built the first building on old Bolling Lane was the Red Ginn pub; named after the horse ginn that hauled men, coal, iron ore and clay, from the mines that covered the area.
Our bus is an AEC Regent III new to London Transport 1947, bought by Bradford City Transport March 1958. It spent its working Bradford life at the Ludlam Street depot, an unrecognised Egyptian style iron framed building.
Our first, brief, stop is St John’s Church, which was built by the Bowling Iron Works and opened 1840. If you go in you should make them a donation.
We should be passing Bolling Hall, the “Pity poor Bradford” ghost thing. It was given to Bradford on 8th October 1916, by George Paley, whose forefather had been a founding owner of the Bowling Iron Works.
The first man to organise digging coal on an industrial basis in Bradford was Abraham Balme (1706-1796) who lived in Bolling Hall as a Land Steward for the Lord of the Manner from 1753 – 1766. He has a John Flaxman monument in Bradford Cathedral.
Our first proper stop is Bowling Old Lane Cricket Club for curry (chicken or veg) and a roti. Beer will be White Rat or Oakham Citra at £3.75 (cash or card) with some bottled lager, or tea and coffee. Bowling will be playing Hanging Heaton in a Bradford League game.
As we pass the works that became the Low Moor Chemical works, that made explosives in the first of our World Wars we remember the 12. Low Moor Explosions of 1916
One of the major monuments of a disaster that killed 39, is at Scholemoor Cemetery (a cemetery visited by the ‘Lost Sporting Heroes Bus Tour’ of 2016). It is dedicated to the memory of the 6 firemen killed.
The last bit is back to The Record via the exciting, and traffic jammed from the minute it opened, extension to Dirkhill Road, then past the site of Bradford’s earliest recorded cricket ground.
The first shock was that my mother died 10 years ago, today.
I needed to check that; and the only place I could was this, my own blog.
I was then shocked that I had not posted anything on her since last Christmas.
I need to re-start blogging. I have been doing Instagram, which is easier than doing this, but I cannot find things I have posted on there without look though every post.
In the meantime here’s to the memory of my crazy mother.
I start talking 15 minutes into this podcast, from Bradford Community Broadcasting. Advertising my next few shows.
The BCB show is Bradford & Beyond, with Dave Stevens and Danielle Broadbent, and The link should take you to the correct hour; it’s worth listening to it all if you can.
I announced a Priestley walk for 13th Sept (mine and J.B.Priestley’s birthday) for the first time. I am aiming this at those that come to the show on the 10th (see previous blog). I’ll be in the middle of a lot of other work, but anyone will be welcomed if they turn up by 13.00 at Bradford’s Waterstones; and anyone that does will get a discount from Waterstones’ Cafe, if you turn up early enough and get a ticket.
If you come to the show the walk ticket is £3, £5 if you don’t.
Tickets for the Pie & Priestley Show, at the Boar & Fable, Bradford, are available from the venue or from eventbrite, for a fee.
Sorry that it’s been over a year. I did add some event content to http://www.bradwan.co.uk but even that was sketchy. I will try to revive this blog, and am starting with this year’s Christmas electric pylon. Happy Christmas.
The December hard spend
Can chill our hearts
then fog the mind
Can seem like just a duty
That leaves us powerless and blind
Leaves us forgetting what love has meant
So sharpens the winter of our discontent
So let’s resolve to mend
And with loving parts
switch on the kind
So make up the beauty
Of what fools have spent
And use the power
That love has sent.
And may that power
Be what you find.
Happy Christmas. This year’s electricity pylon was going to be multi-layered, but ended up being glue & glitter on the glass of a picture frame. The foreground is a bit of wool pad. The hill is a paper bag, and the background is a black rag glued to the backing, with a star shaped hole cut in it, with a torch behind.I started the poem on the way to Keighley(pronounced Keef-ley) to see A Bunch ofAmateurs, a film you must see. Glyn Watkins 8th Dec. 2022.
The organiser of two celebrations of the Bradford born writer J.B.Priestley’s birthday has declared them to be the best ever.
Bradford based poet and showman Glyn Watkins has been doing a ‘Pie and Priestley Show since 1998, celebrating J.B.Priestley’s birthday and a Bradford meat and potato pie that defied Hitler, that Priestley made world famous in a World War Two broadcast). This year he did a show at the Jacobs Well pub on Sunday, and led a walk around Bradford on Monday 13th September, Priestley’s, and his, birthday. Of the Sunday show Glyn said:
“Everyone in the audience said they enjoyed it. Local film maker Jim Walker told me it was brilliant, and someone else told me they did not know what to expect, but when I pulled a Maggie Thatcher head out of a bucket and did a ventriloquist version of ‘When We Are Married’ he was startled, but it were the bit he enjoyed the most!
The walk went really well too. We were lucky with the weather and not only did everyone enjoy my readings from Priestley but a lot of the people know more than I did about some of the places we passed. local historian Janet Senior especially taught me a lot.
Probably the best part of the walk and show were the pies made by Chris Hall of Jacobs Well, which were universally praised. He put a candle in mine for my birthday, which was nice.”
Glyn and his home made version of Roberts’ steaming pie.Glyn doing his ventriloquist version of ‘When We Are Married.’ Glyn’s birthday pie at Jacobs Well,
An entertaining celebration of the writer J.B.P Priestley and a meat meat & potato pie that defied Hitler.
Sunday 12th September 12.00 – 14.00.
Jacobs Well pub
Kent St
Bradford BD1 5RL
TICKETS £10 from Jacobs Well or on-line from eventbrite.
Ticket includes meat & potato (or vegetarian) pie and peas, first drink and illustrated show about the life and work of Bradford born writer J.B.Priestley
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