Posted on April 14th, 2015
Celebrating our Centenary in 2014 and our 101st birthday today, we wonder where on earth the year went. It has passed by so quickly!
As many of you would have read on our Centenary page we have had a busy year celebrating and raising funds for local charities. After our main Centenary celebrations on April 12th 2014, and the usual busy St Georges Day Celebrations, we thought life in the pie shop would settle into a more normal pace. We were delightfully proved wrong!
In the summer we were honoured to have the Pearly Princess of St Pancras, Diane Gould, join us for a fund raising day for Great Ormond Street Childrens’ Hospital. Diane, wearing her beautiful Pearly Princess outfit adorned with gorgeous pearl buttons – the shapes of hearts, horses heads and shoes, bells, symbolising the essence of Pearly Kings and Queens. Diane entertained customers with her singing and dancing and chatted about the work Pearly Kings and Queens do. Over £400 was raised on the day.
In September we were invited to the Premier of the film Arments – The First 100 Years, made by Michael Holland. The premier was held in the Shortwave cinema in Bermondsey, at 106 minutes long, it was very entertaining. It depicts the characters of the pie and mash world, together with the history of Arments pie and mash shop then and now. For those of you who haven’t seen it, there is a clip on YouTube. You can also purchase a copy from our shop for £5 or on line. A free public screening was held on October 4th at Elephant and Castle.
On September 27th Roy Arment was invited onto London BBC radio. Roy was asked about the history of Arments pie and mash shop and how it has changed over the years. Roy was only 12 years old when he first started learning his family trade as a Saturday boy! On October 31st Arments held a Halloween fund raising day for Guy’s Evelina Childrens Hospital. Creepy cup cakes were sold by Beetle Juice and his assistants with all proceeds from cake sales and raffle going to the charity.
In December Cheryl Arment was invited as a guest speaker on the Jay Rayner show, Gourmet Kitchen, on BBC Radio 4. Recorded live in Greenwich, the discussion was about our slippery friends eels! Click here to hear the show. Eels are at the beginning of the Pie and Mash shops as the pies were originally Eel pies due to the abundance of them in the River Thames. Today Arments serve them cold as Jellied Eels or hot as Stewed eels in liquor. At the end of January 2015 Arments new website was launched. It now offers an online shop for pie and mash delivery all over mainland UK, it features a customer every month in Customer Corner, an if it’s you, you will win a free pie and mash dinner! We also have a fun time corner, special promotions page and our very own pie and mash club! You can join here to receive special offers and Newsletters throughout the year.
In February we celebrated St Valentines Day by putting little hearts on our pies, sending out love to all our customers :-).
On March 13th, Arments attended and supported the Mayor of Southwark, Cllr Sunil Chopra’s, Evening of Diversity fund raising event for Homes4Heroes and The Robes Project at Dulwich College. Here we tasted the delights of food across five continents and were entertained by dancers from Ireland to Bollywood!
Now, one year on, and as we are preparing for St Georges Day, we are celebrating our 101st birthday! We are giving away FREE with every order of £25.00 or more spent in the shop today April 14th an exclusive Arments mug or food grade hessian bag! Hurry! This offer is only available whilst stocks last!
Finally, we would like to say a BIG thank you to all our pie and mash customers for your continued and valued support!
