Despite lengthening shadows, a breath of balmy summer blessed the boundaries of Borough and Bermondsey as seekers after pie converged upon M. Manze to inaugurate the first session of the Pie and Mash Club in the Carolean era, i.e. King Chas 3.

Once processed by the counter ladies in emerald, our company ranged itself over a couple of cosy cubicles in a reasonably busy, buzzy dining room.

Gone were the horrendous perspex dividers of the covid era as we ensconced into wooden-pewed, marble-topped normality to enjoy the comfort of time-honoured custom.

A sight for sore-eyed time travellers from 1890.

The cut of Victorian cloth would eminently suit the characters of Messrs Benford and Goldwater. Add to the sartorial equation a deerstalker, cape and pipe, and a brown derby, carpet bag and knobbly stick respectively, and you have the Notorious Eel and Pie Catchers of Old London Town.

Wilcock’s dramatis persona is more mist-wreathed Magwitchian, although today’s after-dinner anecdote was placed somewhere around 1970 and combined a ‘missing’ consignment of Polish vodka and an ingenious clear glass bottle recycling scheme. Some of the protagonists are still believed to be at large . . .

The Pi-quick Club, shortly before crossing the Tower Bridge Road to the George Tavern for a parting snifter. Long live the King.

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