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- Jul 19, 2004
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The link in post #1 is long dead. Here's the complete text, salvaged from the Wayback Machine ...
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MINCE PIES
David Knight
After the death of my father around seven years ago, my mother lived alone on the outskirts of Leicestershire, near the village of Anstey, where they had lived since about 1968. Her garage was at the bottom of the garden and had been built by my father in the early 1970's. Shortly after the building was completed a conifer was planted near to the back door of the garage. The tree was a slim conifer ( I think that they are called sky rocket) and grew to the height of around seven feet. The tree remained undisturbed for about 25 years.
After my fathers death in 1994 my Mum became concerned that someone could hide behind the tree and pounce on her coming out of the garage. We all recognised that this was unlikely but, nevertheless, decided to dig the tree up anyway. So one late Spring/early Summer afternoon I went to my Mum's and began to dig around the roots and rock the tree to loosen it from its 'moorings'. As the roots gradually emerged about three very pale white objects the size of mince pies emerged from amidst the roots. It was a truly bizarre moment, they were actually almost enmeshed amidst the network of the roots. My wife thought they must have been on the surface and fallen in as the soil was disturbed....she wasn't there though. The surface soil was clear - conifers, as you will be aware, don't permit other plants to grow beneath their leaves. I stopped rocking the tree and said "that looks like some sort of fungus". The objects came easily away from the roots and the more we looked at them the more we thought that they looked like home made mince pies. So we broke one open to reveal mince meat. They appeared 'fresh' although the pastry was very pale!
We were surprised to find them since we could see no reason for them to be there and the ground had generally been undisturbed for the best part of a quarter of a century. We kept the pies in the freezer for some years afterwards finally disposing of them when my Mum moved to a smaller house. My Mum told a friend of hers who worked for the local paper and she did receive a call from someone claiming to be from the daily Mirror... we assumed this was her friend 'on the wind up' and never pursued it. I have told numerous friends who all, I suspect, assume this to be a tall tale. It's not.
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SALVAGED FROM: https://web.archive.org/web/20021208192653/http://www.forteantimes.com:80/happened/mincepies.shtml
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MINCE PIES
David Knight
After the death of my father around seven years ago, my mother lived alone on the outskirts of Leicestershire, near the village of Anstey, where they had lived since about 1968. Her garage was at the bottom of the garden and had been built by my father in the early 1970's. Shortly after the building was completed a conifer was planted near to the back door of the garage. The tree was a slim conifer ( I think that they are called sky rocket) and grew to the height of around seven feet. The tree remained undisturbed for about 25 years.
After my fathers death in 1994 my Mum became concerned that someone could hide behind the tree and pounce on her coming out of the garage. We all recognised that this was unlikely but, nevertheless, decided to dig the tree up anyway. So one late Spring/early Summer afternoon I went to my Mum's and began to dig around the roots and rock the tree to loosen it from its 'moorings'. As the roots gradually emerged about three very pale white objects the size of mince pies emerged from amidst the roots. It was a truly bizarre moment, they were actually almost enmeshed amidst the network of the roots. My wife thought they must have been on the surface and fallen in as the soil was disturbed....she wasn't there though. The surface soil was clear - conifers, as you will be aware, don't permit other plants to grow beneath their leaves. I stopped rocking the tree and said "that looks like some sort of fungus". The objects came easily away from the roots and the more we looked at them the more we thought that they looked like home made mince pies. So we broke one open to reveal mince meat. They appeared 'fresh' although the pastry was very pale!
We were surprised to find them since we could see no reason for them to be there and the ground had generally been undisturbed for the best part of a quarter of a century. We kept the pies in the freezer for some years afterwards finally disposing of them when my Mum moved to a smaller house. My Mum told a friend of hers who worked for the local paper and she did receive a call from someone claiming to be from the daily Mirror... we assumed this was her friend 'on the wind up' and never pursued it. I have told numerous friends who all, I suspect, assume this to be a tall tale. It's not.
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SALVAGED FROM: https://web.archive.org/web/20021208192653/http://www.forteantimes.com:80/happened/mincepies.shtml
