Hadleigh Houdini tastes Denby Dale Pie
This, our 1,000th article, was sent in by Hadleigh's champion escapologist
In 1988 I performed my crane escapology in Denby Dale, a village famous for its pie.
Since 1788, beef & potato pie dishes have been made to commemorate important national events, such as Wellington beating Napoleon at Waterloo, and Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. Over that time nine pies have been made, each dish getting progressively larger. By the bicentenary of the event in 1988, the pie had grown to 20 feet long by 7 feet wide & 18 inches deep; and was transported on a lorry!
Many of the pies in the past have been uneatable & had to be scrapped or replaced. With the 1988 pie being sold for £1 per portion, local environmental officers kept a close watch on its cooking, concerned that food poisoning of possibly thousands would be overwhelming.
The days scheduled for the eating in a local park were the 3rd & 4th of September, before which Denby Dale hosted many fund-raising events. It was claimed that 250,000 people visited the village in the preceding months. With wide media coverage, firms for miles around paid to enter the large carnival procession.
The company making the dish had it displayed in the village. The cooking of the pie also took place there. As the Denby Dale pie was to be entered for the Guinness Book of Records I was booked to perform as the World’s Most Handcuffed Man. Due to being already contracted to appear elsewhere for the 3rd Sept, I could only do the 4th.
When I arrived in the village in the morning it was closed to traffic, with large car parks in surrounding fields. When I was waved through to the showground it was already pouring with rain which was forecast for the day. The ground was saturated & straw was being laid for vehicles to enter, with some needing a tractor.
A long line of booths was charging for entry & portion of the Pie. Fortunately, the arena put aside for my performance was near the entrance. I parked my car & trailer next to the crane to be used for my act. The local firm had done me proud with a crane to lift me 140 feet.
A nearby disc jockey presenting a show was also in charge of the showground’s public address system. He would also come into the arena when I performed. He was in a bit of panic when I arrived as he had no electricity available. However, the meat pie supply connection was all right.
By late morning, people were asking when I was to perform so I decided to go ahead without the microphone. By then the flimsy roped arena had been trampled down by the volume of people. I was hoisted up dangling on a burning rope in a straitjacket in the pouring rain.
My afternoon act of the “Houdini Bomb” was a non-starter as no way could the steel bomb be dropped from a great height into the crowd. I visited the marquee housing the meat pie & had a taster being handed out. That was my lunch for the day.
A fortnight later I had a call from a police officer in Derbyshire asking about my fee. I told him I had a contract with the show organisers via my agent. The officer told me around 60,000 attended the show on the 3rd Sept & 30,000 on the 4th Sept. He told me he was investigating the disappearance of a lot of the takings.
The Denby Dale meat pie was listed in the Guinness Book of Records for 1989. Bigger pies have since been made elsewhere.
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