Fish and Chips

Comment from Bill Charlton

Once my mother sent me down to the village to get some fish and chips for our dinner. In those days the push bike was all we had for transport so off I went to Roddy’s chip shop along Half Lane in the village of Bellingham.

While queuing up for my turn to be served, a young lad came back into the shop with his small packet of chips and said to Roddy, “ Hey Roddy, look what Aa fund in me chips”, and held up a fried mouse by the tail which had clearly been fried along with the chips.

Quick as a flash, Roddy’s responce to the young lad was – “Mind divn't tell anybody else sonny or they’ll aall want one”.

The mouse would most likely have been feeding on the fat in the vat as the stove was lit and was drowned before being fried along with the chips. Mother had a bit of a chuckle to herself when I told her, - “Aye that’s tipickle Roddy” she said.

Comments from Clive Dalton

Roddy’s fish and chips were certainly a wartime treat, and there was always a queue out the door on the nights he was open. There was always Roddy doing the frying and Mrs Thompson doing the wrapping up behind the high counter in the shop.

As well as fish and chips, he had “meat balls” fried in batter. He called them “Doodle Bugs” after the missiles that Hitler was sending over the Channel to scare the wits out of the folk in Southern England. Goodness knows where Roddy got the meat for them, or if it was real meat. We didn’t ask. They could have done a lot of damage travelling at the speed of a real Doodle Bug.