As I have mentioned in previous columns, and as some of my correspondents accuse me of in the same way that they might discuss witchcraft, I hail from the other side of the country, Lancashire to be general, Wigan to be precise.

You may have heard Wiganers referred to – indeed, you may have used the term in a derogatory fashion yourselves – as “pie-eaters”.

There’s an interesting story behind this. You may not know that in the General Strike, the Wigan pits were the first to go back to work, thus giving rise to the scoffing notion that they had to eat “humble pie”.

This is, of course, complete nonsense. They call Wiganers pie-eaters because we eat lots of pies.

When I worked for a newspaper in Wigan, the office was above a pie shop. No word of lie. We stopped short of actually having a pulley system to winch hot pies up to our window, but it was rather a temptation.

Thus, as a young man, I decided to join a gym, to offset the damage caused by the town’s favourite dish (have you heard of a Wigan kebab, by the way? It’s three pies on a stick).

I went to the gym for my consultation and induction, did a couple of circuits of some cruel-looking torture devices, had to stand by an open window because I felt like throwing up, and was told that if I was serious about getting fit, I would have to stop eating pies.

I never went back to the gym.

Later in life, when the woman who was to become my wife first met me, she watched agog as I put a pie in a barm-cake – that’s a teacake or a breadcake to you lot – and ate it. And she still married me.

I don’t eat as many pies these days, but it’s not for want of trying. What, exactly, is it about Bradford that you can’t get a decent pie?

I have traipsed the length and breadth of this city and cannot find a good, old-fashioned pie, tub-like in aspect, with a crimped, circular upper edge and two holes in the evenly-cooked lid to allow the steam from the juicy meat within to escape.

Pasties, you sell. Sausage rolls. Strange combinations of pork products and beans, in a flat “bake” affair, which smell, look and taste horrid. But a meat and potatoe pie? Forget it.

The only decent pies you seem to make are pork pies, which I don’t really count as a “main meal” pie. Pork pies are for picnics and to snack on while you wait for a real pie to cook. And if you do manage to make a good pork pie, you eat it with mushy peas. The mind boggles.

Come on, Bradford, if you truly want to be a world-class city again, get your pies in order.