I've always had a fondness for chippies - there was one opposite our house in Palmyra Road - my mum would send me over with our order - I'd stare at the pale lozenges of cod, bubbling and sizzling in the oil - a brylcreemed man would stir the chips - I'd trace patterns in the steamed up windows -
I enjoy the very act of queuing for my bag of cod and chips - I stammer out the magic words - small cod, small chips, a couple of pickled onions - the girl in her base ball cap takes my tenner - a grizzled oldster asks for a battered sausage - I can see members of the Wareham Camera Club going into The Black Bear - there's a picture of a Victorian paddle steamer on the wall, over an appeal for Homes for Heroes -
In Swanage, Tess and I love to snarf chips so hot they scald your mouth - they're drenched with vinegar, sparkling with salt - bold herring gulls, with their sharp hooked beaks, follow us along the esplanade - the young gods in The Fish Plaice grin broadly at the saucy tipsy girls -
I was much taken by Jimmy's Chippy in West Worthing - I'd passed signs for Curtain Doctors and louche barbers - bedraggled families gathered outside Curryland - thin dads smoked spindly rollies -
There was a hatch in the front window of the chippy, opening onto the street - a girl with purple hair stuck her head out, snuffing the air - I shied away from the glare of this gorgon - what spells, I wondered, would she cast over her chips? -
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