This, dear reader, is a rambling story which takes in a Mike Leigh film, pie-making, a waste of a day, a trip to a flea market, and it ends in disaster.

So if none of that takes your fancy, feel free to leave now.

So, one rainy day in the winter lockdown, we decided to watch Mike Leigh’s film, Peterloo. 

Maxine Peake was the indomitable mother figure and she made pies for a living.

Cut to the Kempton Antiques Market – really a large flea market.

I used to go there with a good friend and one day I bought an artisan wooden mallet type thing which I thought was probably used by a someone chipping marble or wood and which I thought would be useful to bash against my hammer to get out tacks when I was dismantling a chair ready for re-upholstering.

(Actually, it was rubbish at that, but I liked it anyway.)

Cut back to Peterloo and the family is sitting around talking politics or something because I have to say during that shot, I had stopped listening.

I saw my artisan piece of equipment behind Maxine Peake.

Putting two and two together, I realised my artisan equipment had something to do with pies and went on a search to find out what it was.

I even tracked down the name of the set director who is the imaginatively named Charlotte Dirickx. I thought I would contact her and find out about this obscure 19th century cooking implement.

I didn’t need to.

I was telling the story so far to a dog-walking friend when she said, ‘Oh it’s a pie dolly for making hot water crust pies.’

Indeed, it seemed, it was.

Now, I know that Mike Leigh has this thing about authenticity so I thought, well if Maxine Peake can make a pie with one, I can too.

Now, I like a pie and often make a pie with my grandmother-taught shortcrust pastry skills. Indeed we had a cheese, onion and dill one last night.

And here as they say are two I had made earlier though I have to say, I didn’t make my own puff pastry – life is indeed too short.

But I hadn’t done hot water crust for a while so it was a bit of a challenge during what was a driech and drear, lethargy-inducing lockdown day.

I am sure Maxine’s character didn’t make her pies with best butcher’s meat – and indeed a Manchester pie is basically potatoes and a bit of butter in a pie.

But I did. 

So I made the beef filling – as I said good quality beef, bay leaves, red wine, carrots, celery, nice stock – but not too much because it had to support the pastry. 

And I made the hot water pastry and moulded it around my pie dolly, filled the insides, put a lid on it and put it in the oven.

I can freely admit at this point that it was a faff and the pie dolly is not going to become a favourite kitchen implement.

And you can see why.

A good few hours of wasted effort on a failed experiment.

The Best Beloved said he was fine with eating a collapsed pie and the pastry was lovely, but the filling was a bit dry. I mean, really?