Good pastry:

• keep it as cold as possible
• rule of thumb - Half fat to flour
• when adding in water to bind, make it ice cold (run the tap for a good 5 minutes)
• too sticky? add a little more flour - to dry? add a little more water
• people often make the pastry then bag it in a freezer bag and put it in the fridge for 15 minutes or until they need it
• personally, I find lard makes better pastry than butter/marg
• if using butter/marg then add a little bit more than half the weight of flour, when you are mixing it

Lightly dust your worktop and rolling pin with flour, before rolling out. Handle your pastry as little as possible.

REMEMBER: Your pastry is bound together with fat (lard or marg, etc) the more you handle it, the warmer the fat becomes and the more your pastry will break up when rolling.