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anyone who looked upon it that its owner was contradicted about once every Preston Guild.
    As always Price was dressed in a black jacket, black and grey striped trousers and bowler hat, a form of dress he had worn for business for the last fifty years. From the back, with his traditional short-back-and-sides hair style, he looked like the character 'OddJob' in the James Bond film Goldfinger; a coincidence that was instrumental in giving birth to an authentic piece of Joe Price folklore. At the time of the release of the Bond film a youth, noticing the similarity, and seeing Price alighting from his Rolls one morning, had shouted 'OddJob!' at him from across the street before laughing and running off. Later that morning Price, with his chairman of the local Chamber of Commerce connections, had found out where the youth worked and had gone there and demanded he be sacked. He was, immediately and without ceremony. Making further use of his connections Price then made sure the youth failed to find employment anywhere else in Frogley. A week later Price knocked on the youth's front door. When the youth answered the knock Price shouted 'No Job!' at him, laughed in his face, then went on his way.
    Price's Pies was by far and away the leading employer in Frogley, over three thousand workers passing through its large iron gates every day. It was also the largest manufacturer of pies in the country by a fair margin. They were excellent pies too, prize-winning pies, their recipes unchanged since the very first pie was baked by Joe Price's father Joshua in 1923.
    Price ruled his pie factory by fear. He had found out that this method worked when he took over the running of the factory on the retirement his father in 1958, and had never found reason to change it, even if he'd had the inclination.
    There were no trade unions at Price’s Pies. Price had always paid his workforce ten per cent more than they could get elsewhere locally, and made them work twenty per cent harder for it, so everyone was happy. Price, however, was the happiest. Someone had once tried to get a trades union going in the factory but Price had dealt summarily with this pesky intrusion by giving all non-union workers a twenty per cent rise. Everyone who had joined the union quickly left it to qualify for the rise, and soon after they had all returned to the fold Price dropped everyone's wages back to the previous level.
    Now, seated in the back of the Rolls, Price was feeling particularly pleased with himself. He had just met with his solicitors to tie up a couple of loose ends, and the objective he had been working towards for the past couple of months was now a done deal. In a couple of days he would announce it to the media.
    Suddenly there was a screech of tyres as the Rolls braked hard, throwing Price forward into the back of the driver's seat with a painful bump. A small dog, dyed in the Frogley Town colours, had suddenly shot out into the road, causing the car’s chauffeur, Slaithwaite, to take evasive action. Alarmed, fearful that his employer had sustained an injury, Slaithwaite turned to him.
    “ Sorry. Sorry Mr Price, sir. Is tha all reet?”
    Price straightened himself up then sat back in his seat. “No bloody thanks to thee, Slaithwaite.” He indicated to the chauffeur to continue the journey with an impatient wave of his arm. “Get me to my pie factory. And then get out of my sight, tha'rt sacked!”
    “ But …but it were Fentonbottom, Mr Price,” Slaithwaite protested.
    “ What bottom?” said Price.
    “ Stanley Sutton's dog, Mr Price. Fentonbottom. It run reet out in front of me, I'd have hit it if I hadn’t braked.”
    Price was unmoved. “Tha knows t' rules, Slaithwaite.”
    “ But....”
    “ And but me no buts! Joe Price’s chauffeur brakes for nowt only human beings; and then only them as can still work. So get me to my factory, and sharp about it; then get theeself down to t' dole office, if tha’s a mind.”

    Donny put on his