My dad made Maws pies! Memories of the huge ovens and 'queues out the door'

Linda Brown, nee Anderson, read an Echo story in which we put the spotlight on Maws pies.

It brought back ‘super memories’ of her father Frank Anderson who made the favourite treat ‘along with a group of staff in the back of the shop’.

She still remembers ‘the big ovens where they could fit large trays of pies in to cook them. All the pies were hand made on the premises and very popular’.

"I remember the queue out the door. The staff were mostly ladies and they made those pies too.”

Linda added: “I remember these pie shops very well. As a child I went there with my father who owned and ran a group of about five pie shops in the Sunderland area along with his second wife Pat.

"When I visited in the school holidays I would be taken with them as they both worked in the bakery making the pies. This was where I learned how to mix pastry. This would be in the 1970s. Of course. it would not be allowed these days with health and safety.

"But I loved going to the shops, meeting the ladies that worked in the back. All the pies were hand made back then.”

Linda, who lives in Cumbria, said the pie makers ‘were so fast and slick at what they did.”

She said she also remembered ‘the streets they were on were Hylton Road, Villette Road, Olive Street.

"There was more. I just cant remember what they are. I was only a little girl.

"Dad used to transport the pies around to the other shops. I think his main pie was mince and he gave out mushy peas in a plastic bag tied in a knot and gravy in a bag.”

Linda said the ‘best part was I got to eat those pies’.

"Eventually he got a machine to roll the pastry. All the pies were cooked on site.”

Her dad eventually sold up and bought into a pub called the Caroline in Hetton le Hole.

"I was about 18 so that would be about 1980. After leaving there, he acquired a supermarket on an estate somewhere, after which he retired. He lived in Washington in the Rickleton area. He and his wife were enjoying retirement.”

Linda has memories of her dad also making rocking horses and said : “He sold a few and they didn’t come cheap.”

Sadly, his wife Pat contracted lung cancer and died in 1999.

After that, Frank moved to Keswick to be near Linda and his grandchildren but died two years later, aged 83 in 2006.

Linda said readers may also remember her brother Leslie who worked in the shop on a Saturday.

Our story in 2017 included readers memories of Maws Pie. One follower remembered the original Maws Pies was in South Hylton in the 60s and used to be delivered to the housing estates in a blue van.

What are your Maws Pies memories? Tell us more by emailing [email protected].

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