IT’S getting on a bit. Still probably a bit tasty, but it’s doubtful if anyone would wish to eat it.
It is, in fact, a Raynor’s meat pie which has been in a Royston family's freezer for more than three decades.
Stephanie and Ian Goddard told us: “We regularly went to Raynor’s for pie and peas and when we heard it was closing we bought several pies and put them in our freezer. We ate most of them, but kept this one as a keepsake.”
The pies were sold to customers at Raynor’s cafe in The Arcade (now Malcolm Birds) and were very popular, particularly with football fans on their way to and from Oakwell on match days.
Memories has recently received several letters from former customers of Raynors who are all of the same opinion: “They were great.”
We heard from Mrs R Allott of Higham who said: “Someone find the recipe quick.” Former Barnsley Council sanitary inspector, Irvine Fieldhouse, said he remembered Mr Raynor and his staff making the pies in cramped but spotlessly clean conditions. His mother was a regular customer at the cafe when he was a boy.
Muriel Turner (nee Hodgson) worked at Raynors for 14 years. She helped in the kitchen and saw the pie filling (beef) being put into a large machine. The pies were cooked in very big hot ovens.
When the cafe closed at the end of each day, any pies left were sold to the public.“They queued half way up The Arcade for them, there were never any left at the end of the day.”
Alan Bingham, of Redbrook, said as a boy he was taken by his mother to Raynor’s cafe after shopping on Saturdays. “We used to have a pie with gravy poured over it and there was also a generous helping of peas. It was very sad to see the cafe close down.”
Raynor’s cafe was opened in The Arcade by Annie Raynor who was born in 1864. The daughter of a tenant farmer at Newmillerdam, she was the eldest of a large family.
When she grew up she realised she had to do something about getting a job. She was a good cook having prepared meals for the rest of the family and she decided to take up cooking.
She came to Barnsley and opened a small cafe in The Arcade. It was the start of a remarkable success story which spanned more than three-quarters of a century. Annie began baking all kinds of delicious fayre, the most famous of which was the unique oval-shaped Raynor pie.
She met her husband to-be over the counter at her cafe. He was widower Thomas Bentley Hall, born in 1865. They married in 1896.
Annie later handed over the business to one of her younger brothers, Joe Raynor. He was the father of Arthur Raynor who, eventually, became managing director of J Raynor Limited. He was also a Justice of the Peace and was a director of Barnsley Football Club.
Annie died age 71 in 1936, her husband in 1947. Raynor’s cafe closed down in June 1973. She is pictured.
