What it's like to be a judge at the British Pie Awards

It wouldn't take you long to come up with a list of cushy gigs to appeal to a bog-standard middle-aged man. Monica Bellucci's mirror holder would be up there. Sofa tester, perhaps.

But at the top of the list would surely be 'judge at the British Pie Awards'.

That's why, when he was invited to become a judge by the organisers of British Pie Week, this bog-standard middle-aged man bit their hands off. And why he found himself on a freezing cold railway platform at stupid o'clock in the morning on one of the coldest March days since records began.

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This is because the British Pie Awards take place every year in the pork pie capital of Britain, Melton Mowbray. That's unless you're from Wigan, which considers itself to be the pork pie capital of Britain. (We're not going to get into it here, but Wigan's various rivalries with other pie-producing towns would take up a book that made The Lord of the Rings look like a pamphlet.)

Melton Mowbray is in the dead centre of England, which, of course, means that the train service is abysmal, with one train per hour to and from Birmingham, in theory, and fewer in practice. So if you want to get to Melton Mowbray from the north west in time for the judging, you've got to be up early.

As the March snow fluttered down, I arrived at the medieval St Mary's Church, which towers over the centre of Melton Mowbray, and which traditionally has hosted the British Pie Awards since the initial ceremony in 2009.

The night before, judges had been warned that heating in the stone church had gone kaput, and thermal underwear was required. It was clear that this, like the inaccessibility of Melton