An event on Wednesday at Napoleons Casino that celebrated J.B.Priestley’s birthday and a Bradford pie that defied Hitler has been declared a steaming success.
The evening consisted of readings of Priestley works by Glyn Watkins, including a wartime broadcast that told of Priestley coming back to Bradford after it had been bombed in 1940. He had been told a famous pie shop that had a massive steaming pie in its window had been destroyed, but to his delight the pie was still there:
“…steaming away like mad. Every puff and jet of steam, defied Hitler, Goering and the whole gang of them. It was glorious.”
The celebration also included meat and potato pie and peas, a brass quintet organised by Jim Shepherd, that played Yorkshire tunes that had the audience singing along.
Glyn was full of praise afterwards:
“The seemed to be close to a 100 people there. Some knew more about Priestley than I did; and some just came to eat pie and didn’t even know there was a show on, but everyone enjoyed it.”
The show ended with a set of contrasting Priestley pieces including a harrowing reading from English Journey about a reunion dinner for the survivors of an Army battalion he had joined in the first week of World War One. This was followed by Samantha Wass getting up from the audience, walking on stage, and started the part of Annie Parker with Glyn as Albert, the man see thought she had married 25 years before, only to discover the parson was not qualified. The scene is from When We Are Married, and had the audience in stitches.
The Glyn Watkins Show Page. 
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