Lancashire Post and Blog Preston launch Parched Peas podcast episode one features Preston's Spud Brothers
The first episode of the Parched Pea Podcast is all about Preston’s Food.
John Gillmore heads to Lune Street chippy to talk to Fred all about his life owning a chip shop and working through Covid, writes Ellie Browning.
Fred has a lot of memorabilia in his chippy from Preston’s history, Guilds, old streets and towns and even a working grandfather clock.
Fred loves his rock music and takes us through his day to day activities. He is known in Preston for his affordable chippy prices. He told John all about starting up his chip shop after being a decorator for 23 years and the struggles of working for yourself as a teenager.
He said: “I suppose it’s because I’ve always been self employed. In your younger early days I was always fed up with being skint because nobody ever gives you anything. It’s not like working, you’re responsible for absolutely every single penny.”
John also head over to Preston’s famous Spud brothers at Preston Flag Market. Currently at 2million followers on TikTok, the spud brothers are viral across social media for their jacket potatoes which people travel from all over the world to try. They do live streams, giveaways and many charity events selling jacket potatoes, baked potatoes, hot dogs, milkshakes, sweets and of course, parched peas.
The family took over the tram in 2020 with their dad Tony dad dancing on TikTok gaining 60k followers. When oldest brother Jacob took over, he carried on with TikTok and their spuds went viral.
Jacob and Harley Nelson talked through the process of taking over the spud tram which has been on the flag market since 1955 and becoming TikTok sensations.
Jacob said: “It’s really exploded over the last four or five months that we have been doing it. We don’t know where we are going to take it but the opportunities that are coming over have been insane.”
The Parched Pea Podcast is a collaboration between the Lancashire Post and Blog Preston, with Gilly exploring the people and places which make the city tick and will be available on Spotify, Apple and all other major podcast apps via Podfollow with new episodes being released each Wednesday.
The podcast has been supported by Preston Markets, where a number of the interviews were recorded, and Preston’s Business Improvement District.