“PIE FOR breakfast!'' cried Peter; “How perfectly ripping!''

“It isn't pigeon pie,'' said mother; “It’s only apple pie.

“Well, this is the supper we ought to have last night. And there was a note from Mrs Viney. Her son-in-law has broken his arm, and she had to get here early. She's coming in the morning at ten.”

That was a wonderful breakfast. It is unusual to begin the day with cold apple pie but the children all said they would all have it than meat.

The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit

THE Railway Children film has a timeless quality, offering adventure and excitement just like the apple pie mentioned in the film, or was it Jenny Agutter who played Bobby?

A bit of both I think!

I have fond childhood memories of watching the first showing of this classic film way back in 1970 at the Keighley Picture House cinema, bagging a front row seat with the Worth Avenue gang.

Every bank holiday and Christmas time when the film comes on our tellies out comes my rolling pin for a bit of nostalgia baking - Daddy, my daddy is baking a apple pie for tea!

Apple pie is one of my all-time favourite desserts and when I was a child I always got excited when the Sunday roast dinner was followed by mum’s apple pie, served with ice cream if we were lucky.

Us Yorkshire folks have a great fondness for luscious puddings and we all just love apple pie. I will tell you how popular this pudding used to be – so much so that it became rather a cliché for a while.

You would have fairly carelessly made, frozen and re-heated apple pies being on the menus of most restaurants and pubs around the UK.

But people soon got bored with an offering of soggy bottom pastry and tasteless dried apple filling – they craved the real thing, not mass-produced imitations, but carefully made.

This pudding is hard to beat in the taste stakes.

It's like a siren call to the family once it comes out of the oven and adding a little cheese to the pastry crust always fits in well with our Yorkshire cuisine.

The nights are starting to draw in now and getting a little cooler, another season is fast approaching, the leaves are showing first glimpses of turning colour and beginning to shrivel.

This means one thing – it’s apple pie season.

It’s time to get the rolling pin out, pick some wonderful English apples and make a pie this weekend for the family like I will be doing.

I also be celebrating my milestone 50th baking column in today’s Keighley News, while watching the re-run of the Railway Children eating apple pie with a reet Bobby dazzler!

• Have you missed any of Mike’s 49 previous Friend in Knead recipes in the Keighley News? Celebrate the golden anniversary by visiting keighleynews.co.uk, clicking on What’s On then Food & Drink, and they’re all there to sample.