Last updated 07:06, Friday, 18 July 2008

There is no such thing as Pie in the Sky for Anthony Dalzell. As Workington’s Pie King his meat pies are very much in the here and now.

“Don't call me a pie king,” he says in a no-nonsense tone. “It’s the others in the Haighs Butchers team who are the pie kings and queens. They produce the tasty golden pies.”

Indeed, he plays himself down, modestly insisting that he is simply “a butcher who concentrates on the meat side of things”.

He names a selection of pie experts, each one accorded their place in the firm’s role of honour: “Mandy, Nigel, Lloyd and Malcolm”.

They are the ones, he says, who produce the succulent meat and potato, beef, pork and steak pies that have become a by-word in West Cumbria.

And not forgetting the butchers who prepare the meat that goes into the pies: Gary Edgar, John Blair and Alf Melton.

Queues at the counters in the large modern shop next to Debenhams testify to this.

Eight thousand meat pies alone are sold from the Haighs shop on Fridays and Saturdays.

And more than 2,500 customers visit the shop during the weekend.

Anthony took over Haighs 36 years ago, along with colleague David Pearson.

Together they have further developed the firm that has been going from strength to strength for more than 100 years.

While Anthony runs the Haighs shop in Workington as managing director, it is David who acts as the firm’s other MD (with the Whitehaven shop his domain).

Such is his devotion to finding the perfect pie there would seem to be no escape for Anthony, as he is known by one all.

Though he is called Ant by his friends.

Not even at the sports meetings, which are his one way of relaxing, does he cease his meat pie quest.

Example? This Cumbrian six-footer has been a season ticket holder at St James’s Park in Newcastle for many years.

As the roar of the football crowd subsides during half-time, he finds solace in Newcastle United’s hospitality suite - eating a meat pie.

Then he will give his verdict as to how many points he personally awards it.

Even meat pies in Hong Kong are subjected to the Dalzell test.

The city may not be seen as a meat pie stronghold, but more than 20,000 pies are consumed here during the Hong Kong Sevens.

Step in Mr Dalzell . . . he has visited this event through the years, and even here his thoughts stray back to the Solway plain.

The action on the pitch might prompt him to flash-back to the try he would once occasionally score for Aspatria rugby club as a second row forward.

But it’s odds on it is the taste of a meat pie made in China that will really bring him back to the shop in Pow Street.

Why, if he closes his eyes a moment, he can still remember in days gone by pouring hot meat jelly from a teapot into rows of pies - a task now done using a jelly gun.

Talking of “the odds” brings a gleam to his eye.

Even in the rarified circles of the owner’s enclosure at race courses such as Kempton and Goodwood he still follows his quest.

“Of course,” he says, “my main concern is the welfare and success of my brace of race horses, Hollows Mill and Hollows Mist.

“I keep these at Arkleby on a farm run by friends, Harry and Carole Wilkinson.

“Hollows Mill has won eleven races at the time of writing. Hollows Mist is showing great promise too.

“But if I catch a glimpse of a humble pork pie at one of the catering stands, I must say I will be tempted to buy one and try it out for taste.”

If it sounds from his travels as if Anthony was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, then this would be wrong.

Rather, it was a butcher’s cleaver that was his chosen implement after leaving Beacon Hill School in Aspatria, the town where he still lives.

And it was from his father, Keith Dalzell, that Anthony first learned the art of his trade at a traditional hornbeam butcher’s block.

“My father has been retired for 15 years,” he says. “He started the butchery off at Moota.

“It used to be a turkey farm and following his initiative it became one of the biggest catering butchers in West Cumberland.

“He then set up on his own in Workington, in partnership with David Pearson’s father, John Pearson, another dedicated top quality butcher.

“Together they bought Haighs out all those years ago. And David and I later followed in their footsteps.”

Anthony says he learned the ins and outs of farming from an early age.

He still farms “a few Limousin cows” at the Aspatria farm of his uncle Wally Gray- a well-known farmer who is in partnership with one of Anthony’s cousins, Keith Gray.

Meat from the Gray herd, in fact, forms the Haighs meat supply, all fed on Solway grass.

Butchering the prime cuts of shoulders and loin that eventually go into the pies is Anthony’s speciality.

Few other jobs are as literally hands on as a butcher, and that is Anthony to a t-bone steak, able, he says, to do any job in his emporium that he expects his staff to do.

He can even make the crisp golden flaky pastry that is so vital in pie and sausage roll production too.

“It should melt in the mouth,” he says, and that is what our pastry cooks achieve time and again.

“And, yes, I was taught the art by my father, Keith Dalzell.”

Only in the Haighs cakes department might he himself fall short,

He admits making tea cakes is not his speciality.

As to his judging of the meat pies on his travels, his reply is unequivocal.

“I have travelled the world following sporting events where meat pies are a traditional food of the fans,” he says, “and I think I can safely say one thing.

“Haighs pies are the best I’ve ever tasted.