Last week I travelled oop North to Wigan—TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY ONE OF OUR POUNDS STERLING for a Standard Open Return on a smart, modern, and nausea-inducing Virgin Pendolino. There, I had to give (as I admitted to the audience) the hardest kind of talk: one where you stand in for someone who really knows what he’s talking about—in this case a former pharmaceutical industry statistician.
On the last part of my journey, I did, however, make an important discovery. My epiphany came on my (very) short walk through town from Wigan rail station to Wigan Town Hall. I came closer to the answer to a puzzle that has troubled generations, a question that has echoed down the ages, a mystery so long-established and widely-known that it has even become a frequent topic of public debate at sporting gatherings all over the English-speaking world, namely: “Who ate all the pies?” The answer is, statistically speaking, very likely to be: “Someone in Wigan”.
Welcome to Wigan. Have some lard.
Wiganian street café culture.
The Station Café [click image for close-up of special offers]
Not many people know this, but (just as Milton Keynes is simply the local pronunciation of Middleton Keynes) “Wigan” is Old English for “Weight Gain.”
I was in Glasgow last Friday and sadly forgot my camera, so missed the opportunity to take pictures of battered sausages, pizza, and haggis for sale at the chippy outside our hotel. We found that immediately after listening to a talk which included addressing health inequalities. A round of four beers in Glasgow cost £7.50.
Wiganites are known locally as “pie-eaters” ( or “pie-yaters” if you speak Lancastrian, as my husband does) so it’s good to see that old culinary stereotypes are still strong in those parts.
Very heartening to hear. What about pudding? Do they have custard slices?
I once heard that the term pie-eaters was given to Wiganners after some general strike or other in which they refused to take part. The term was a variant on having ones cake and eating it.
Wiganers are called pie-eaters because during the General Strike in the 1920s the Wigan miners returned to work early and were accused of eating humble pie.
The nickname became a self fulfilling prophecy when modern day Wiganers forgot this and decided to open lots of pie shops (most of which closed down after Pooles disappeared).
Wigan is also the home of the very wonderful Uncle Joes Mintballs.
http://www.uncle-joes.com/
(To Scousers someone from Wigan is a ‘woollyback’, btw – presumably implying they’re from a more rustic part of Lancashire)