The Pie At Night

by Stuart Maconie

  And as the crimson winter sun dropped behind my favourite, Stephenson’s High Level Bridge, a lonely elevated promenade, I could see what the London staff were thinking as they gazed at the city coming alive for the night. You could see the cogs turning behind their widening eyes. You could almost hear their thoughts: Why would I not want to live here, and see these sights every day, breathe this air, walk these streets? Perhaps my house won’t triple in value overnight, but I won’t live in a financial clearing house, at the whim of an absentee landlord, in a city whose heart is shrivelling. When Geordie R&B act the Animals sang ‘We Gotta Get Out Of This Place’, the ‘better life’ they were in search of lay many miles south of the Tyne, presumably in London. Now the reverse would seem to be true.

  I remembered my night at the opera in Leeds and how I raced to the station down crowded streets, awash with tipsy midweek revellers in miniskirts and daft hats. They were loud and lairy, a little too much for comfort maybe. But we are brothers and sisters under the skin, they and I, and they are good people at heart. My people. I have a bit of the peasant in me, a clever one I like to think, but I have come to realise that as much as they annoyed me at the time, I’d rather be running with them down a street in Leeds than watching a baking programme at the end of the Northern Line. That’s the problem. I’m hopelessly biased. The Northern Line just doesn’t go far enough north for me.

  When I was a kid my dad would moan that I ‘didn’t come awake till bedtime’. ‘Night Owl’ was always one of my favourite northern soul tunes. When I hear a grown person use the phrase ‘school night’, I shudder a little inside. The days are long gone when I want to stay up every night till dawn. But I still am proud of the fact that the north will follow sport, eat out, learn French, go to art galleries, walk up hills with head-torches, stay up late and have fun. Between the stern compulsion of work and the free creativity of play, in the friction and clash of the two, we find ourselves.

  Let us go then and wake up the night, that sleeping patient that Prufrock found etherised upon the table. Let us arm ourselves and be guided by what an old friend of mine from Hindley used to say, ‘If I die with 50 pence in my pocket, that’s bad budgeting’ or, my particular watchword, ‘All things in moderation, including moderation’. We’re going out, on a school night, if only because that’s what the boss doesn’t want us to do. The hooter has gone, school’s out and, as Richard Hawley of Sheffield put it:

  ‘Tonight the streets are ours.’

  Let’s go, eh?

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The following people offered invaluable help in many different ways during the writing of this book. Some pointed me to places or books. Some got me into things. Moreover whilst many of the trips and journeys I undertake on my books are solitary adventures (which explains why you might have seen me making furtive notes in a chip shop, museum or nuclear reactor near you) over the course of this book, I was often accompanied by some of the following people. In any event, here they are listed part alphabetically, part chronologically, slightly randomly and mildly nervously as I fear I may have left someone out. If it’s you, forgive me.

  Clare Hudson

  Dee Wallace

  East of Eden WI

  Elizabeth Alker

  Lizzie Hoskin

  Lorna Skingley

  Helen Hobday

  Henrie Rowlatt

  Rebecca Gaskell

  Simon Entwistle

  John Leonard

  Faith Wilson

  Peter Young, David Morris and all at Dobcross Silver Band

  Luke Bainbridge

  Justin Moorhouse

  Simon Moran

  Tony Howard and all at FC United of Manchester

  The Tone Deaf Society

  Ian and all at Belle Vue Aces Speedway

  Jackie, Ian and all at British Crown Green Bowling Association

  Peter Salmon

  Paddy McAloon

  Johnny Marr

  Richard Hawley

  Maxine Peake

  Pawlo Wintoniuk

  Elaine Constantine

  Elle Rees

  Opera North

  Durham Literary Festival

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Epub ISBN: 9781409033240

  Version 1.0

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  Ebury Press, an imprint of Ebury Publishing,

  20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,

  London SW1V 2SA

  Ebury Press is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © Stuart Maconie 2015

  Lyrics to ‘Duw It’s Hard’ used by kind permission of Max Boyce

  and Rocket Entertainment

  Text from ‘Why doesn’t Britain make things any more?’ by Aditya Chakrabortty

  © Guardian News & Media Ltd and used with kind permission

  ‘Morning, Noon and Night’ by Philip Larkin © the Estate of Philip Larkin

  reproduced by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd

  Text from Giles Coren’s review of Aumbry, Manchester © The Times

  used with permission of News Syndication

  Stuart Maconie has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  First published by Ebury Press in 2015

  www.eburypublishing.co.uk

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9780091933814