My Passion for Fish & Chips

On Wednesday, I went direct to Woolwich after work because I needed some cat food.  I also bought a few other bits and pieces whilst there and afterwards, because I had only had a few cream crackers to nibble for my lunch and was feeling a bit on the peckish side, I decided to treat myself to a supper in a small fish & chip shop in Plumstead Road where you can go in and sit down and have a cup of tea etc., I order fish & chips, roll & butter and a nice cup of tea and this came on a nice large oval plate with a side salad.  When I went to pay the bill afterwards, the girl on the till charged me only £1.30 for the lot!  I said I thought this was remarkable value and she replied “Oh well, you had the Pensioner’s Fish & Chips for a £1 didn’t you” – So I must be looking rather old these days!

I am rather into fish & chips at the moment, which probably goes some way to explaining why I am not losing weight.  For months I didn’t have any, and didn’t even miss any – if they had closed all the fish & chip shops it wouldn’t have made any difference to me whatsoever.  Recently, however, I have had this ‘yearning’ for them for some strange reason [almost like a pregnant woman’s fancies!].  For example, last Thursday [7th] I decided to get my shopping done to give me more free time over the weekend – the only snag was I only had 23p in my purse so needed to draw out some cash.  I knew there was an Abbey National Cash Dispenser in Fleet Street, and one in Holborn, so decided to get a bus from Green Park going that way get some cash, travel direct to Woolwich, get my week’s supply of cat food etc., and get home and have a nice bath, wash my hair and go to bed early ready for the next day.  However, .…. in the event…. I got on a 38 bus which I thought went that route – only to end up at the Angel!!!  Nothing daunted I saw an Abbey National there and also a Sainsburys so thought I could get some tins there and, perhaps have a cup of tea somewhere before making tracks for home,  ….BUT….do you know, although it was only about 6.20 when I first arrive, and about 6.30 when I had got a few tins of cat food, there was nowhere open for cups of tea!  Pubs – yes, but no ‘Tea’ places – and by now I was getting one of these persistent yearnings for a piece of fish.  So,… I went to the bus stop and decided I would get on the first bus that came along and would get off at the first bus stop after I had passed a fish & chip shop.  Now, this would probably have been all right if I had been sitting in the front seat on the top deck where I could get an all-round view, but I was sat on the left hand side of the bus, which was quite full, so had only a brief view of the left hand side of the road as we went past and it was therefore quite a long bus ride before I saw my first fish & chip shop – at Gaults Road, Shepherds Bush, to be exact – and that was on the right hand of the road and I wouldn’t have seen it normally, except the bus terminated there!  It was then well gone 8 o’clock but I had a very nice meal and a cup of tea, and eventually arrived back at Charlton at 10.20pm so abandoned the idea of all the bathing, hair washing etc., and – after throwing a tin of cat food at the cats and a handful of pellets at the Chinchillas, I just fell into bed and into the sort of deep sleep that only the dear and the people with no conscience drift into!

Grace Russ - 15th August 1986