Alex's Pies
Charlie,
I remember Alex's van outside Snow Hill Station but I don't think he sold Fleur de Lys pies. - not in the 1950s-60s. The meat pies he sold when I was a customer were OK, but flat and mushy inside, not deep and chunky meat like FdLs.
I think Alex's Fleur de Lys pies were a different animal altogether. My father told me that in the early 1950s he went to a pub in one of the villages to the south of Birmingham (I can't remember which one) where they sold fantastic meat pies. People just went there for the pies, not the beer. The pub was called the Fleur de Lys and the publican was Alex. They proved so popular that he gave up the pub and started selling the same recipe pies commercially to the catering trade - especially fish and chip shops. I think the firm who marketed them when I left Birmingham were Avana Foods - I don't know whether that was the original proprietor's company or whether he sold out to them.
They were terrific pies, though, as you say - I wish you could get them up here in Yorkshire, the local pies here are rubbish in comparison. These Yorkies don't know what they're missing!