It was possible in the 70’s to leave one job at the end of one week and walk into another the following week. I can’t remember how many different “careers” I had during the era of tank-tops and platform shoes but it was certainly in excess of 30. I would work for a few weeks then when the gigs started to come in again I’d quit. After working for several months in the West End as a stage-hand I took a job in a “provisions shop” in The Apple Market in Kingston-on Thames. The shop was called Bernards and it was run on a feudal basis. “Mr Bernard” was no longer alive but you somehow felt that it was expected that you should “doff your cap” to this unseen employer. I have never quite understood why any man should be expected to be subservient to any other man and although it is necessary to have leaders and managers and so on, I don’t go along with the idea that one should be servile. This attitude didn’t bode well for my retail career…
The shop opened at 8.30 AM and you had to get there by about 7.30 at the latest to get everything ready. The manager was known as “Mr Henry” and he was a pernickety, thin and balding man with a strangely incongruous yokel accent. His second-in-command, Eddy, was a rather large, and extremely camp individual with absolutely no sense of humour whatsoever. He had a lisping manner of speech too…
“Yeth Mithter Henry…no Mithter Henry…. Have you uthed greathproof paper between the slithes of ham Howard?”
“Oi don’ waaant any untidiness ‘oward. Make sure everything is staaacked neatly. ‘ave you swept the floor yet? ‘oi caaan see a sweet wraaapper you’ve missed there!”
Eddy had an annoying habit of repeating whatever Mr Henry said…
“Yeth therth a thweet wrapper jutht there by your feet.Thweep it up!”
I’d be tempted to respond with something like: “Well bollocks to sweet wrappers!” but instead I’d make a pointedly surly and half-hearted attempt to check the floor for any offending item of rubbish. I was, after all, still a teenager, if only just.
There were two other younger men besides myself working in Bernards. They seemed a bit timid and although Keith and Alan were both OK, you couldn’t really have a conversation with either of them. It was as if they feared that opening their mouths might have resulted in instant dismissal. They had both married at a young age and had young children too and seemed to be shackled to Mr Bernard’s little empire until kingdom come. A profoundly depressing thought.
My duties were multifarious and they were all pretty tedious. From feeding sausage meat into sausage condoms to make “Mr Bernard’s Sausages” or skinning frozen hams or serving rather tight-lipped elderly women … it wasn’t that much fun for a would-be rock star. The big day of the week was Saturday in Mr Bernard’s workplace. It was “all hands on deck” and a huge queue used to build up down the length of the cobbled Apple Market (an ancient street in Kingston) before the shop even opened.
It’s strange to remember that it was all so different then. The shop had one of those old tills. The type where you had to spread your fingers across the keys to ring up One Pound Thirteen and Fourpence Ha’penny. When the till drawer opened there was an enormous “ding”. It was all a bit reminiscent of a famous comedy series featuring Ronnie Barker and David Jason.
In some ways it’s good to think that we served cooked meats like corned beef or ham or brawn in “quarters” between pieces of greaseproof paper. No plastic containers. No cling film. Brown paper bags and greaseproof paper. No latex gloves to serve anything either…HORROR…just your bare hands. I’m not aware that anyone died as a result of me serving them but it wasn’t quite as tense in the early 70’s in any case:
“Mildred died has she? Food poisoning was it? Well…she never was much of a cook was she?” And that would be the end of it. There wouldn’t necessarily be a bunch of solicitors chasing Mr Bernard’s emporium for compensation, as now no doubt. Those who believe that we are more concerned about our fellow human beings these days should perhaps look at the huge number of recent war atrocities and the fact that it’s not safe to be in a British hospital any longer. “Don’t whatever you do get ill Howard!” was the comment made fairly recently by a friend of mine in the medical profession.
Through a sense of devilment and also because of utter boredom, I developed a technique which was not popular with either Mr Henry or Eddy. It was so busy of a Saturday that I figured that I could skim the quarters of cooked ham or whatever onto the scales from several yards away as if I was throwing a frisbee. One young couple came in every week to watch me in action; I could see them giggling way back in the queue. It wasn’t exactly Tom Cruise in “Cocktail” but it must have been fairly amusing; if you had a sense of humour that is…
One formidable woman who looked a bit like a battleship remarked on one occasion that :
“If Mr Bernard woz still alive ‘e’d ‘ave ‘ad yer guts fer garters.”
What she was complaining about was not my “frisbee techinique” but the fact that the niggardly Mr Henry got us to hide one fatty bit of corned beef between two lean pieces in their greaseproof paper portions. This didn’t go down well. Especially so as this same woman had been up in arms that I wouldn’t sell her exclusively brown eggs.
“Tell ‘em they caaan only aaave three brown eggs and three white eggs ‘oward see!” Mr Henry told me.
“But what if they say they want all brown eggs?” I replied.
“Take no notice boy. They must aaave what their given.”
Why is it then that white eggs don’t exist anymore? I mean have hens been genetically modified to lay only brown eggs one wonders? Or is it all in the feed? Apparently “very orange yolks” are not a sign of a healthy egg but an egg from a chicken that’s been fed on “E numbers”. And how come that hens lay eggs with lions on them? It’s all a bit baffling.
We sold small eggs for sixpence (2.5p) a half dozen. No box, just a brown paper bag. Another cheap favourite were pigs’ trotters. They were “thruppence” each. We had a great sack of these behind the counter. They were bloody and clammy to the touch. That disconnection between death and the food we are prepared to eat was quickly shattered by the sight. It made me shiver.
The incident that probably sealed the end of my career as a provisions operative is etched on my brain. I occasionally think about it and chuckle to myself. It concerned removing trays of eggs from a cardboard packing case.
“See them boxes of eggs boy?” Mr Henry said to me one afternoon.
“Yes I’m not blind,” I answered.
He ignored that… “Well oi waaant you to remove them fraaam the box and put them on the counter ‘ere see?” “And BE CAREFUL!” he added.
I have taught many teenage lads to play guitar over the years. I don’t quite know why but for some reason they are generally a bit “cack-handed”. It is as if they haven’t quite yet learned to co-ordinate properly. I think that I was no exception .Add to this, the fact that I really didn’t care about anything BUT playing guitar and there was a good chance that the task entrusted to me might go wrong…
All was well until the last box. I reached down to the bottom of the carton and started to lift out the twelve trays of eggs but somehow or other I got them stuck against the other trays in the box. Rather than let them down again I tried to tug them free… they came free all right… dozens of eggs shot into the air and landed on the floor. Within minutes the whole place was like a skating rink and I was only making things worse by spreading it around with a mop. One woman fell over. It was mayhem. Unfortunately, we didn’t have one of those yellow cones they put in supermarket aisles to warn customers of danger…that would have made all the difference of course.
Mr Henry didn’t speak although I’m quite sure he was almost apoplectic with rage. All he eventually said to me as I continued to mop the floor was:
“Make sure you clear up that waste paper while yer at it boy!”
“Therth thum wathte paper there!” Eddy added right on time.
Later, as I wandered back along the riverbank to my bed-sitting room I reflected on the fact that my days at “Mr Bernard’s” provisions emporium might be numbered. It didn’t worry me unduly.