If you’ve had the pleasure of visiting the glorious north of England in the last thirty years, then you may have noticed a rather odd bit of graffiti.
The strange graffiti simply says in giant white lettering ‘PIES’ and first appeared on a bridge spanning the M57 in Merseyside, but slowly spread across the North West.
But at last, the mystery, which has bewildered passing motorists for years, has been revealed. It turns out that The Pies are a band who are due to release their debut album, The Mirror reports.
The band formed in the late 80s and they were regulars on the Liverpool music scene. Unfortunately, The Pies split in 1993 after a disastrous U.S. tour.
The M57 Pies graffiti was apparently painted when the band became ‘stuck’ on the bridge and ‘didn’t know what else to do’.
Guitarist, singer and songwriter Ashley Martin told the BBC:
The M57 is the famous one, ‘The Pies The Pies’ was basically because we got stuck on the bridge and we didn’t know what to do, so we wrote The Pies again.
It stayed up over twenty years, and Alexei Sayle used to say the council would paint around it.
Sayle turned out to be wrong and the graffiti even spread to other bridges and landmarks.
I guess it’s true what they say about us northerners – we love a good pie.
More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.