The Pie Shop.

I know it's still there because I drove past it recently. Is it still used for the same purpose? I wondered. In the fifties the Pie Shop was where we all met after the dance at The King's Hall on Saturday night. It was the only place that stayed open until the early hours of Sunday morning and the place everybody went to exchange their weekly news and boast about their exploits of the evening. We never went there at any other time during the week.

The memories flooded back; Eddy, who became a contender for the flyweight championship of Great Britain. Frank and Danny, both became professional footballers, Danny even played for England! Harry, who somehow got involved with a hard crowd in the next manor but managed to avoid capture when the law caught up with them. Tommy who had a different girl friend every week, and Pete, he said he would make a million and retire at the age of forty. I wondered if he made it! They and all the others aired their hopes and ambitions to anyone in The Pie shop that would listen.

The Pie Shop was built in the early 1900's in the middle of a bustling East End Street Market. The front, painted brown and cream, was dominated by a large plate glass window, through which you could see all that was going on inside. It sat stolidly above royal blue ceramic tiles that reached from the window sill to the pavement. Both were always spotless. The large brass horizontal handles on the bottom of each side of the frame shone like burnished gold. In the summer the windows were opened and the unique smell reached far beyond that area of the market. Even the pavement outside was regularly washed down with steaming hot water and dried to a clean-looking grey. It made it's neighbours look tawdry and uncared for and the market stalls positively grubby.

The heavy oak and glass door, with its huge brass handle, opened directly into a large dining area. From the window and along the left hand side of the room ran a long high counter. Tables in neat straight rows took up the rest of the room. Those tables had clearly been designed by someone very small because inevitably, as you sat down, you thumped your kneecap against the iron rail that ran underneath from one end to the other. No matter how many times you had been to the Pie Shop you always forgot that iron bar and crashed your knee into it. It seemed a part of the experience of going there.

On the white marble tops, standing like guardsmen, were tall glass condiment sets with black bakelite tops. Salt, pepper, vinegar, all you needed to season the speciality of the house Pie and Mash With Liquor. It wasn't the only fare; jellied eels, whelks, cockles, and other shellfish more suited to the Tubby Isaac stall in Petticoat Lane on Sunday morning were also on offer, but not nearly as popular. Certainly not with us anyway, on Saturday night we only ate Pie and Mash with Liquor, we wouldn't have dreamed of eating anything else. The meal was completed with a large mug of steaming hot strong tea.

No girls ever ventured into the Pie Shop on Saturday nights. They weren't barred or anything like that, they just didn't go there at that time of night. It just wasn't done. They had been 'Taken Home' by their boyfriends immediately after The Dance, their parents insisted on it and woe betide anyone who defied the rule. Now that I'm a parent I can easily understand why.

The only female to be seen at that time of night in the Pie Shop was Lil. She served behind the counter and did the cooking, presiding over a shining array of enamelled saucepans and other cooking utensils, and the huge gas stoves on which the food was cooked. She was always there, part of the scene, maybe she lived there. Perhaps she slept behind the great old metal till that showed in two inch high red and black figures how much you should pay. The till was a total irrelevance in any case, no receipt was ever given and Lil could add up faster than any till.

By any standards she was a large lady. What she lacked in height she more than made up for in girth and weight. Her round face, straight mouth, dark blue eyes and black hair scraped back into a tight bun at the back of her neck, combined with the white chef's type apron she always wore, gave her an unmistakeable air of authority. You instinctively knew it would be pointless to argue with her about anything. She rarely spoke, never smiled or acknowledged you no matter how regularly you went there. She was, without doubt, the most formidable woman I have ever met.

Despite her imposing size she moved quickly, and it must be said, gracefully to discharge her customers orders....Orders? Well perhaps not orders, let's call them requests. I can't imagine anyone giving her orders.

Though she never wasted time talking to customers and appeared totally engrossed in the preparation of the food, nothing in the room escaped her eye. At the first sign of trouble she looked to her son Sam and nodded her head in the direction of the offending table. Sam would stroll over to the quarrelling customers and say quietly. 'Mum says to turn it down a bit'. That was usually enough to settle even the most heated disagreement. In all the time I frequented the place I never once saw an argument develop into a fight. Elsewhere it would have been the inevitable outcome.

Sam stood every night, and all day too for all I know, in a corner of the shop. He gave the clear impression that to break the peace in his Mother's shop would be a very unwise thing to do, he, Sam, would take it personally. He weighed nearly sixteen stones, stood over six feet tall and appeared to be made from the same material as the tables. We all believed he had Likker in his veins instead of blood. It explained the lack of colour in his face, a lack of colour that some very quietly and well away from the Pie Shop referred to as a billiards hall tan. It was said that Sam had been a boxer, though when no one ever thought of asking. We all believed the rumour and accepted the obvious wisdom of always being on good terms with him.
There was no question of reserving a table, even less of any kind of waiter service. You queued up at the counter, told Lil what you wanted and waited there while she prepared it for you. Well, saying prepared might be overstating things a bit. Put simply, Lil took a thick plate from the rack over the oven, they were a sort of cross between a dinner and a soup plate. Plucked a pie from the oven, mostly without gloves, and dropped it onto the plate. From a huge square steel container mashed potato was scooped with a long wooden spoon and slapped onto the plate beside the pie. Both were then covered with Likker made to her own secret recipe. Only two ingredients could be readily identified, water, it couldn't be anything else, and fresh parsley, which she chopped on a wooden board with a long sharp butcher's knife.

Likker was worthy of particular study. It was a thick, grey, glutinous looking liquid that had bright green parsley leaves scattered over it. As it was poured, it insidiously crept all over the plate but strangely never went over the edge. It always stopped just short. Unfortunately, though it didn't run over the edge, it did get close enough to half submerge the unsuspecting customer's thumb in a scalding, sticky heat that invariably caused the customer to yelp with pained surprise.

The trick was not to try extract your thumb from the heat immediately, but to grit your teeth and move at speed to a vacant table. Usually you just made it by the time the heat on your thumb became unbearable. You dropped your plate gratefully onto the marble table-top and stuck your thumb into your mouth to cool it. At this point you understood why the plates were so heavy. Lighter plates would have lasted only one or two trips from the counter to the tables before shattering into a thousand pieces. If no table was vacant the customer had a very real problem, Lil would say curtly "Move along there's someone else waiting". The brave soul that pointed out to her that no table was free was given her coldest look and told he should have checked that one was before he ordered his food. (No one ever referred to it as a meal).

Newcomers provided good sport for the regulars. They would be examined with close interest when they arrived and nudges and winks would alert the lads that a good laugh was in prospect. On being given his food he would naturally take hold of his plate, thumb over the top. It would, of course, disappear into the Likker. The first reaction was always the same. He would mutter "Christ, that's hot" and drop the plate back onto the counter to consider his next move, at the same time looking accusingly at Lil. There were not many with the nerve to ask why she hadn't told him it would be so hot. The return look on her face matched the consistency of the Likker, grey and totally impenetrable.

The second attempt to lift the plate was equally fascinating. The newcomer, his thumb still stinging from the first encounter with the Likker, would very carefully pick up the plate so that this time his thumb did not come into contact with the hot liquid. While the heavy plate was on the counter there was no problem, but, when he lifted it he would quickly discover that the space between the edge of the plate and its contents was too narrow to hold and maintain the plate on a level plane. By the time this light dawned, it was too late. Amid delighted roars of laughter from all those watching, the Likker would run along the edge of the plate and fall with perfect accuracy onto his trouser legs. Leaving a thick, grey, greasy stain, it ran quickly down the trouser leg spreading as it went. At the same time the Pie and Mash would move purposefully toward the edge of the plate as if unwilling to be left behind by the departing Likker. It was at that stage vital to make a dash for the nearest table. The gleeful watchers laid bets on whether or not he would make it.

The piecrust, of flaky pastry, was always baked a golden brown, which suggested it would be crisp and yielding. It wasn't, it stoutly resisted the first tentative attempt by knife and fork to pierce it and would yield only to a much more determined assault. I was always intrigued by both the colour and texture of the lower part of the pie. It was grey, soft, and had the consistency of damp newspaper. It was a unique preparation and I have seen nothing like it before or since. The contents of the pie were and remain a complete mystery. What type of meat it was we never knew. What there was of it, was pale brown and resembled stewed rubber bands.

By half-past twelve on Saturday nights there would frequently be upwards of fifty people crammed into the dining area. The room echoed to the sound of young men shuffling across the bare scrubbed floorboards and all talking at once, all trying to top one another's stories. Still, the space in front of the counter remained calm and orderly as if divided by an invisible line. Lil could not and would not be hurried and no one wanted to spill anything onto her counter top. Someone did once and the look she gave him made clear her thoughts and almost froze the Likker on his plate.

Groups of young men aged from about sixteen to twenty would be eating their pie and mash and talking animatedly to each other. The topics fell broadly into three areas. "The Girl of the Evening" and "How He Got On With Her", Football, how he played that day and why he hadn't played better, and money, none of us admitted to having any but all of us intended to be rich. Nobody ever discussed the food. What was there to discuss? Pie and Mash with Liquor on Saturday night with the lads was unique, marvellous. We loved it and who the hell cared what the food tasted like. I doubt if anyone even gave a thought to the food they were eating.

There was a recognised and established path to the Pie Shop on a Saturday night. All the local football teams played on Hackney Marshes in the afternoon. If it was deemed a home match we used a pitch on the Eastway side of the Marshes. For away matches we used the Homerton side. They were about half mile apart with two main roads running through them. (One of them is a motorway now). We met at the pitch, no one knew anyone with a car in those days! We changed behind the goal despite the provision of a Changing Hut provided by the council. We did use it once but when we returned after the match most of our clothes were gone. One of our players found that all he had left was one sock and a pullover with holes in it. I remember him holding it up to his chest and realising it was at least three sizes too small, asking plaintively "What the bleedin' 'l am I s'posed to do wiv this?" A variety of suggestions answered him. We never used the hut after that, instead we wrapped all our clothes in a waterproof sheet and put them in the back of the goal.

After the game a brief meeting was held to decide what was happening that evening. The result was always the same. We would go dancing. We would meet in the bar at the dancehall. By eight-thirty all those who were coming had arrived and pints of 'Sherbert' were disappearing down dry throats, (Mostly paid for by those of us that had a job). Some of us didn't drink much, but we pretended we did to avoid the label 'Cissy'.

One Saturday evening in December only George and I were left in the bar and the prospect of the Pie Shop in two hours time was beginning to trouble us. For once, I was intending to rebel, apparently so was George. We agreed. Not again, it must be ten weeks on the trot. No! Not tonight, there must be something else. There was! She was walking in through the door as if in answer to my thoughts. She had a friend with her so I suggested to George that we should go over and talk to them then meet later in the pie shop as usual.
I didn't get to the Pie Shop that night, I had found the girl I eventually married and I wasn't sharing my thoughts with anyone.

I remember the Pie Shop now with great affection and wish I had written down some of the stories I heard there...but I doubt if I will ever go there again. You never know George may still be waiting for me and after all this time he'll be in a filthy temper.