THESE columns march on Taylor’s pies, have done for donkeys’ years. Paul Taylor-Garthwaite, a fourth generation director of the family firm, recalls a football match report in which we concluded that the game was awful but the pies were terrific. There’ve been a canny few like that.

This, though, concerns the cricket – Durham v Somerset last Tuesday – and Mr John Maughan’s broken journey to get there.

John lives in Wolsingham, had driven to Crook, caught a bus to Durham and another towards the county ground at Chester-le-Street. At Framwellgate Moor, however, he got off the bus again, stocked up on Taylor’s pies for him and his mate – “they double wrap them, keeps them nice” – and continued on the next one.

Still warmer than the weather, the pie juice ran satisfactorily down his chin somewhere in the vicinity of deep extra cover. “Oh you’d be surprised,” says Paul Taylor-Garthwaite. “For a lot of people the juice down the chin is the best bit of all.”

“Too true,” says John Maughan. “Too true.”

It’s an excuse, were one needed, for the column to invite itself to chew over a couple of things back shop – penny duck, anyone? – the pie man’s equivalent of a kid let loose in Santa’s grotto.

Harry Taylor was born in Sheffield, toured the north doing bits of butchery, took a stall on Darlington market in 1922 and decided that he liked the look of the place.

A shop in Skinnergate soon followed, but it was after the war before his son Jimmy came up with the first Taylor’s pork pies. “They made them where he served his apprenticeship in Leeds. He thought we should have some, too,” says Paul.

The queues soon formed, past the lucky-for-some bingo hall and round the corner, the other way, into Bondgate. Above the window it still proclaims “H Taylor and Sons” – hence the carefully considered apostrophe, The firm’s bags tell it as it is: “The noted pie shop,” they proclaim.

They sell 50,000 – fifty farinaceous thousand – pork pies each week, more than half of the 115,000 products turned out weekly. Sausage rolls are second favourite, mince and onion pies third.

A little display offers potato wedge seasoning, flavours like piri piri or sea salt and malt vinegar. The college students like them, says Paul.

Though the shop expanded, and the wholesale business grew, it’s only in the past six years that Taylor’s has gone in for what might be termed out-of-town shopping in a bid to win a bigger slice of the action.

Now there are 110 employees, a factory and a burgeoning café – “We wish we’d built it twice as big” – shops at Framwellgate Moor and at Belmont, both in Durham’s suburbs, in Ferryhill and in Richmond. More are planned, one perhaps imminently. Ten, Paul supposes, might be an optimum number in order to retain tight family control.

Why did it take so long? “We realised that we had a brand and that we should exploit it. The recipe for the pork pies is very simple and hasn’t really changed. We’d be fools to mess with it. Why kill the goose that lays the golden egg?

“We’ve been a bit surprised at how well the Durham shops have gone. We didn’t realise that we were so well known so far north. We don’t advertise much, but we’re lucky; our customers are very loyal. Most people prefer their pork pies hot, though the big carving pies are best cold.”

He’s joined in the business by his brothers Stuart and Nigel and by James and Alex, his fifth generation sons. “I didn’t encourage or discourage them, they recognised a thriving company,” he says. Pamela, his mother, still looks in at least once a week. “She keeps a watchful eye on things. I think that’s the best way to put it,” says Paul, 50.

The more traditional butchers’ market has shrunk – partly, he supposes, because of health scares. “I was just saying to someone at the cattle mart on Thursday that it was a long time since I’d seen a newspaper article saying that meat was good for you. All they say is that it’s bad for you. Mind, it doesn’t seem to affect our pork pies.”

Downstairs the lunchtime rush is over, but they’re still queueing outside in one of April’s endless showers. The staff, identically turned out, are endlessly cheerful, remarkably efficient. Paul produces a little goody bag. Rain may have stopped play elsewhere but, pie-eyed, I head happily home.

THOSE who with justification wonder how on earth all Darlington’s hot food takeaways survive – as those in other towns – may be interested to learn that the New Bengal in Victoria Road has closed.

Dated March 31, one of those fearful High Court notices advises that the lease has been forfeited, the premises entered and equipment seized.

What’s particularly sad about this one is that on the two occasions that the dear old Eating Owt column was trusted to help judge the Darlington curry competition – in 2003 and 2010 – the New Bengal, entered anonymously, won both times.

The second was a healthy curry contest. The two chefs who entered deep fried vegetables, the column supposed, might have misunderstood the concept of “healthy”.

The New Bengal, at any rate, for many years had my photograph in the window in a presumed attempt to attract custom. It seemed a bit like the old joke about keeping the bairns away from the fire. Regrettably, the dodgy in the window appears to have been seized, as well.

A COUPLE of hundred yards nearer the town, The Woollen Mill – a Hungry Horse pub – opened last week. A first and quite possibly last visit discovered a Tuesday offer on real ale. “Buy one get six free,” explained the barman, and remained impervious to correction. They’ll learn.

...AND finally, a small PS to last week’s note on the 1912 aviation tragedy at Marske-by-the-Sea. Peter Sotheran points out that at the Miners’ Hospital in Marske, to which the dead pilot was conveyed, the resident medic was Dr Mayhew-Bone. “In view of the number of amputations resulting from mining activity,” says Peter, “it was probably quite appropriate.” Dr Mayhew-Bone may even have been a forebear of Dr Pain, still bringing blessed relief to Upper Wensleydale.