Can I use that title or is it copyrighted nowadays? Nine years after the book of the same name myself and Andrew Vaughan wrote about Wigan Athletic’s promotion season to the Premier League, I find myself once again burrowing headlong into a writing project* (*i.e. book) when I should be enjoying a nice, relaxing summer after a marathon season.
I can only apologise to my fellow contributors and readers of this site if my output has been a tad wanton and sporadic recently but if I’ve been a little bit quiet it’s usually because I’m up to something. In fact, I’ve been beavering away to put the finishing touches to this latest tome and I thought I would give the TNS community a little insight and a bit of a pre-sales offer now there is a bit of daylight in sight.
Here at This Northern Soul, we’re big fans of traditional print material be it football programmes, magazines/fanzines or books whilst still embracing new forms of media. Whereas this isn’t a football book as such there is more crossover than Leigh Jenkinson used to do stepovers so I hope you don’t mind me suggesting it warrants a further mention.
Pies and Wigan are inextricably linked. From the push pram to the care home, we love our pies in Wigan. Regardless of how much truth there is in the origins of how Wiganers became known as Pie Eaters, it’s fair to say that our pie consumption per capita is unparalleled across the North of England if not the world.
What’s it got to do with football? Well pies and football are also inextricably linked and provide much of the source of my inspiration. From the St Andrews’ Drive Popular Side or the Supporters’ Club as a youngster (they were Twiss’ Pies I think?) to the modern day Pooles and more recently Hollands at the DW, having a pie at the match is woven into the very fabric of football and I call upon my years of travelling the country eating pies whilst watching Wigan Athletic throughout the book.
Describing the book in a nutshell isn’t that easy but there is one thing it is definitely about and then a load of subplots.
Two years of travelling the country finding and eating the best pies available to man (occasionally in conjunction with a football match).
400 pies consumed travelling anything up to 10,000 miles spending several thousand pounds – I haven’t worked it out yet
So yes it’s about pies, but it’s also about rambling (in both senses), travelling this fine land of ours, getting into and out of sticky situations, discovering hidden gems and overcoming an obsession emanating from Wigan and heading off in all compass points in search of PIE-fection.
I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a bit of self-indulgence in there but my mission is a deadly serious one. There have been books of this nature done before but they’ve generally been written by chefs. This one is written by a complete idiot armed only with a smartphone and a battered old Volkswagen Golf.
At the very least it will provide a great reference point for finding the nation’s finest pie purveyors but beyond that it is written with humour, passion and a wry observation of British life in the 21st Century.
So now I’ve introduced you to Life of Pies, I’ve hopefully whetted your appetite, most probably for pies at least if not the book. I therefore need to finish with a plea. Printing a book costs money, which I am currently self funding.
It seems that a popular method of finding investment these days is known as crowd funding or kick starting – finding people who are interested in your venture and asking them for money up front in return for future reward.
Well for a start I can offer you a book consisting of 350-400 pages including pictures and a colour insert for just £9.99 + p&p.
However, for the first 100 people who buy Life of Pies I am offering a unique opportunity to have their name and/or inscription in the first edition of the book free of charge as a thank you for helping to fund the initial print run.
You will get your copy posted out to you before it is released into the shops and you will get my eternal thanks for helping me to make this a reality.
Life of Pies will be going to print by the end of next month and released in September.
Please feel free to have a look around www.lifeofpies.co.uk and the many pie blogs contained within
And if you are feeling particularly generous you could be my latest best friend and visit the site Pie Shop and place an advance order and be one of the first to receive a copy hot off the press whilst supporting the latest madcap idea of one of your fellow Latics fans
Yours in pastry
Jimmy
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