Eric Leaver on a timeless Easter tradition

HANDS up, those who know that today is Pace Egg Monday. Not many, I'll warrant.

But the arrival of the Monday before Good Friday - always the day for the peculiar "pace-egg" frolics that went with it - was eagerly anticipated for months by the lads in Darwen before the First World War. This was the day they could expect a treat as "Owd Toffee George" Butterworth went "stagging."

By then, the Bridge Street baker and confectioner and his staff had been busy for weeks making thousands of pace eggs - flat round biscuits made from a flour parkin mixture which were sold wholesale to shops in 7lb and 14lb bags.

But what happened when Owd George distributed the spare ones he had set aside for Pace Egg Monday was some old-fashioned fun - as was recalled in this newspaper nearly 40 years ago by the baker's ex-apprentice, 74-year-old Arthur Leach, who had become the last Darwener to make pace eggs.

"If I said I'd helped to make a million, I don't think I'd be far wrong," he said. "But no matter how many he sold beforehand, Owd George always made sure that he had about a hundredweight left for 'stagging' on the day.

"A few minutes before the breakfast-time break at Belgrave Mills at eight o'clock, the lads who worked there would gather inside the big gates. As soon as the watchman opened the gates, they would tear down Belgrave Road and into Bridge Street in a screaming mob shouting 'Pace-egg! Pace-egg! Nanny wi' a wooden leg' and that sort of thing. "About ten-past eight, George would push his way through the crowd and come across to the bakehouse in Cuckold Street at the back of Bridge Street. Then would begin the procession through the Millstone Hotel back street to the corner of the market ground."

Mr Leach recalled being at the front, carrying as many pace-eggs as he could while the mill lads crowded round, trying to knock his feet from under him. Behind him, carrying more, followed the head baker, Orlando 'Landy' Haworth with Old George at the rear swinging a big flour scoop and chuckling all the time as he tried to knock the lads away with it as they jostled for the pace eggs.

"All the lads wore heavy steel-rimmed clogs known as 'iron billies' and it wasn't unusual to see one descend on a hand that was reaching for a pace-egg on the ground. Wet or fine, the scrambling went on and even if the pace-eggs were covered with mud they were still stuffed into pockets," Mr Leach added.

"After they had got all our pace-eggs they would run off down the main street to see if any other shopkeepers were giving anything away. And they could always get away with going late back to work on that particular morning."

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