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A REALLY special All Our Yesterday’s Treat this week with a look back at the history of the world famous Denby Dale Pie.

All the information and photographs are in a new book called The Denby Dale Pies – Ten Giants 1788-2000 written by local historian Chris Heath who lives in Upper Denby.

It takes you through the history of all 10 pies – including the disasters and even tragedies along the way – and features 350 black and white photographs.

Many of them have not been seen before so All Our Yesterdays can now give you a good flavour of what each of those pies was all about.

The first pie in 1788 was to celebrate the return to sanity of George III and was baked at the White Hart Inn, the second in 1815 celebrated Wellington's victory at Waterloo and contained 20 fowls and a couple of sheep while the third pie on August 29, 1846, celebrated the repeal of the Corn Laws which would lower bread prices.

But 15,000 people turned up to this one, the stage collapsed, the pie came crashing down and people scrabbled to get what they could.

That leaves seven more monster pies and you’ll find the history about them along with many photographs inside.

Chris’ book is published by Wharncliffe Books, has 246 pages and costs £14.99 from book shops.

Alternatively, it is available for just £11.99 online from www.pen-and-sword.co.uk .

Now turn to page two for a glut of pie pictures and stories from down the ages!

THE 1887 pie was on August 27, 1887, to celebrate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee.

The steel and iron dish was made by Huddersfield company W C Holmes and Co and cost £100. Bakers from Halifax were commissioned to bake it and they brought in a London chef who caught a train back to the capital on the eve of the event. Perhaps he had an inkling of the disaster to come. The pie was drawn from the White Hart to Norman Park. The event was a fiasco.

There was no announcement of the timings or the running order and the large crowd swarmed forward with people grabbing what they could from the giant pie.

But the pie stunk due to problems in the cooking process,

According to The Huddersfield Examiner the cooking pan was too small so had to be continually refilled and when it was emptied into the pie pan the meat already in there had gone cold.

It stood in the sun all day, turned putrid and so it was filled up with anything they could get their hands on including 40 stones of potatoes and many had not been scraped.

The Examiner reporter concluded: "I am astonished how the promoters dare offer the pie for human food."

It was a disaster and the remnants of the pie were buried in a field near Toby Wood.

Village pride had taken a severe knock and so a week later on September 3, 1887, another pie was cooked, this time by the village ladies for 2,000 guests which was far more successful. This was known as The Resurrection Pie.

Now onto 1896's pie - next page

THIS pie on August 1, 1896 celebrated the 50th anniversary of the repeal of the Corn Laws. It was reported in the Barnsley Chronicle that Pie Committee secretary Mr William Wood sang a panegyric on Denby Dale Pies and hurled back with lofty scorn the insults and jibes thrown at the Dale because of the fiasco attending the jubilee pie of 1887.

A dozen servers dished out 2,000 portions from behind strong wooden barricades.

Next page is 1928's pie

THE seventh pie is known as the Huddersfield Infirmary Pie.

It was baked for August 28 1928 to boost hospital funds in the pre-NHS days when it depended on voluntary contributions. At that time almost every church or chapel in the country had an Infirmary Sunday where the collection was solely for the benefit of the local hospital.

A new pie dish was made by G W Naylor's brick and tile works in Denby Dale and was 16ft long by 5ft wide and 15ins deep.

The oven was built by the Denby Dale Concrete Manufacturing Company at Corn Mill at the corner of Wakefield Road and Miller Hill, but on the big day the dish stuck in the oven and needed crowbars, jacks and a lot of manpower to free it.

The dish and pie weighed five tons and insufficient rollers had been fitted to it to free it easily.

All ended well though with 256 volunteers serving the pie to 40,000 people and it raised more than £1,000 for Huddersfield Royal Infirmary and a further £1,000 split between similar amount split between local churches and good causes.

It's 1964 on the next page

SEVERE rationing after the war meant cooking a giant pie to celebrate was impossible.

But in 1964 the committee decided to celebrate four Royal births in the same year Prince Edward, Lady Helen Windsor, Lady Sarah Armstrong Jones and James Ogilvy.

But tragedy struck when four of the main organisers were killed in a car crash on the Grantham bypass in the early hours of the morning.

They had been returning from the ITV studios near London after filming a programme about the pie.

They were the lead baker 52-year-old George Saville, the 24-year-old pie planning committee chairman John Haigh who had married the previous year and his wife was expecting their first child, retired 86-year-old businessman Benjamin Beaver and Denby Dale Brass bandsman Lawrence Wainwright, aged 63.

The decision was made that the pie would go on and it was served to more than 30,000 people.

It was followed by a Pie Dance at the Sovereign Inn that featured The Swinging Blue Jeans.

More than 2,000 souvenir plates were sold.

Funds from this pie bought the land where the Denby Dale Pie Hall was built at a cost of almost £24,000 and opened in 1972.

Next page is the 1988 pie

THIS was known as The Bicentenary Pie and was held on September 3 1988 to celebrate 200 years since the first pie.

The sun shone after a week of rain and the BBC Radio One Roadshow hosted by Mike Read broadcast live from the pie field. There were 170 servers and people paid £1 for a slice. The event was held over two days with 60,000 people served the first day and 30,000 the second. The pie went into the Guinness Book of Records as the biggest meat and potato pie in the world.

The next page is from the 2000 pie

THE final pie was the Millennium Pie on September 2, 2000 and was the biggest ever at 40ft long by 9ft wide by 3ft deep and weighed in at 12 tonnes.

The first slice was cut by cricket umpire Dickie Bird and more than 22,000 people were served. Over the years the pies also brought in money from souvenirs such as plates, spoons, mugs and brochures.