Tuesday - but it seems that sitting around the dinner table enjoying a classic British dessert is a dying tradition at other times of the year.

Pearl Mudrie always makes sure she gets her just desserts.

“I always save myself for my puddings,” she smiles, about to tuck into her treacle tart.

Mrs Mudrie, from Telford, is one of an army of pudding lovers who appear to be bucking a national trend that is signalling the decline of the Great British pud.

Dessert deserters, apparently, we are simply not eating them any more. We may have turned into a nation of roly-polys, but that’s got nothing to do with the pudding whose name has been taken in vain to describe a nation of fatties.

Spotted dick, rice pudding, treacle tart, apple pie - puddings that used to be a staple of the British diet are at risk of extinction on menus everywhere according to a recent survey, which discovered that the average UK household tucks into traditional sweets such as jam roly-poly, bread-and-butter pudding and all manner of sponges just once a year.

Now it is feared that the traditional dish could disappear from our tables completely because the average family spends less time eating together and we simply don’t have enough hours in the day to whip a pudding into shape from scratch the way mother used to.

The makers of Bird’s custard have even launched a campaign to save the British pudding.

Yet in foodie Shropshire, we still like a hearty pud. The Hundred House Hotel in Norton, which is championing the Great British pudding, does a roaring trade in traditional desserts; its treacle tart is legendary.

Pastry chef Sheila Childs has been rustling up Britain’s third-favourite traditional pudding, treacle tart, for 21 years and customers travel from far and wide to get their fix.

“They are very, very popular,” says Hundred House head chef Stuart Phillips. “You couldn’t take them off the menu - there would be an outcry.”

Demand is such that the kitchen knocks out between 60 and 160 yummy treacle tarts a week. If there’s a pudding crisis about to bite, it clearly hasn’t reached Norton yet - although Stuart does say: “It’s not something you see on many menus.”

And it’s not just treacle tart either. Also in demand are rice pudding, apple crumble and a smorgasbord of other scrummy traditional desserts.

Aside from the Hundred House, there are county people and eateries aplenty that still champion the Great British pudding. The sticky toffee pudding, treacle sponge and treacle tart are popular platters on the menu at The Gaskell Arms in Much Wenlock.

But many others, such as the top class Overton Grange Hotel in Ludlow, are catering for our increasingly European tastes with sweets such as hot chocolate fondant and passion fruit dishes.

It does seem that, as well as changing eating patterns among families, the pace of modern life means fewer people have the time to rustle up a pudding from scratch and have turned to eating them largely during a visit to a restaurant.

Producers of ready-made desserts that once relied upon the appetites of fast-living pudding patrons, have reported a decline in sales from supermarket shelves.

Tucking into her rice pudding with pineapple at the Hundred House Hotel is Marife Deneon.

“I have one every other day,” she says. “I do eat them at home often. They are delicious.”

Her dining partner is John Pugh, from Belbroughton in Worcestershire, who is less frequent but nonetheless enthusiastic about the Great British pudding.

“I like them but I normally run out of space,” he says indicating his tummy. “I eat them once week, less occasionally at home because it’s too much.”

Tucking into his tart, he describes it as a taste sensation. And it’s a taste that clearly takes him back to his puddings days of yesteryear.

“Spotted dick and stodge - people get to their second course and want a treat, something special,” he adds.

Gilly Wootton, who is dining with her mother, Mrs Mudrie, is enjoying her apple crumble - homemade of course - at the Hundred House.

Traditional

“It’s great because it’s traditional in our family - it always finishes a meal,” she says.

“I make quite a lot of puddings myself at home, I learned at my mother’s knee because she was a great pastry cook.

“And I teach my children and my grandchildren.”

So much for not passing it down through the family then, although one suspects that Gilly is among the minority.

Sylvia Phillips, one of the proprietors of the family-run Hundred House Hotel, cites other reasons why Britons might be eating fewer puddings: more mothers used to be housewives and part of their job would be to cook meals that would usually include a pudding.

There is another, too. “From what I can gather it’s the health aspect - they see them as fattening but that’s not really the case.”

She points out that with fresh, homemade ingredients with light pastry and fresh fruit there is not necessarily a need to fear a pudding.

Head chef Stuart adds: “People are more health-conscious - they should be more happy-conscious.”

The proof is in the pudding - make it another treacle tart, over here please.