My Childhood Memories - The Chippy

Where I grew up in Chadderton, just up the street was a row of shops that were the heart of the community. The first shop was a hairdresser, then a chippy then a baker shop, then a general grocer, and then across the street next to that was a butchers.

The chippy was called GoSin and owned by a really nice Chinese guy called Alan who had it for years. He made the nicest chips EVER. His gravy was really thick dark brown and his peas were the 'naturalist' of luminous green. No matter what the weather, if we were hanging about outside at night, someone (usually Jill Graham as she always had money) would end up getting a bag of chips from the chippy. It wasn't even announced that they were to share but it was kind of an unwritten rule that everyone's grubby hands would be straight in, to nick a chip. If we got some chips 'wrapped up' rather than 'to eat no' mum would always ask for no vinegar so the ships didn't go soggy. Chip shop vinegar always tasted nicer than when you put it on yourself at home too.

To eat now

Wrapped up

When you had them to eat now they came in a cone-shaped from folded up paper if you got them to 'eat now' or if you asked for them to take away they came all wrapped up like a small parcel. None of these plastic trays though, they were just shoveled onto a piece of grease-proof paper and then wrapped up in newspaper. This changed to plain paper sometime after. Apparently, after years of us eating them out of newspaper that never did us any harm, someone decided the newspaper print might be bad for us. So from then on they had to buy purpose-made sheets of plain paper designed specifically for chippys. This was long before worries about recycling and the environment but thinking about it, using old newspapers was ahead of it's time. Re-using what would otherwise have been thrown away was an unconscious way of recycling I guess. Not sure if the chippy had a deal with the newsagents to have their unsold papers or where they sourced them from?

The one thing that sticks in my mind about the chippy was when someone got a bag, you would pinch a chip off them and it was the nicest chip ever. It would be crispy on the outside and fluffy in the middle. So you'd 'leg it' home (that means run fast) to ask yer mum for 50p for a big of chips then dash back to the chippy and order a bag. Now by this time they had cooked a fresh batch of chips and they would be piping hot and not quite as crispy and also a bit rushed so not always as cooked though as the one you previously tried. It happened to me EVERY time I can guarantee it. One time I even gave Jill my money and got her to order my chips as if they were hers and would you believe it they were perfect lol. Coincidence I'm sure.

Often we would have a chippy tea on a Friday (there wasn't any of this posh lunch and dinner malarky, we had dinner and tea). Friday was apparently when everyone got paid, so mum used to send me with a large pyrex dish with a lid and say "ask for chips and peas with pea juice in there". I was always absolutely mortified having to hand over this bloody big dish to be filled up. I kid you not I googled 80's pyrex dishes and this is the pic that came up and I swear that's the one we had lol.

Now as much as I loved a chippy tea, I hated going to the chippy once it started to go dark. Across the road from the chippy was the local hang-out for the 'rough lads" Ronnie Lees and the Blease brothers (Aran Blees and Lee Blease). Ronnie Lees was a hard nut from up the top of Henley Street near higher house close. The Blease brothers used to live just off Glebe Street just around the corner from our street. When mum and dad used to ask me to go to the chippy at night it used to fill me with dread because I knew I would have to go past them all and they would often shout abuse at me and sometimes assault me if I was near enough. So I used to have to adopt covert tactics to get from my house to the chippy with a little visibility of them as possible.

My theory was if they couldn't see me approach the chippy and I just appeared and was in and out, then they wouldn't have time to notice me and start their attacks. So imagine a capital letter D and my house is at the bottom of the straight line and the chippy was at the top. Instead of being able to go straight up and having to walk past them all. I would go the long way and go from the bottom of the curve to the top, behind all the houses and I would come out and the side street next to the chippy and dart in with my head down. They were usually across the road so if they were engrossed in conversation they wouldn't notice me and I could be in and out and then back down the side street and along the same route home. Sometimes they would spot me as I came out and try to give chase, this just meant the time I had wasted walking to the chippy the long was, I made up time running home. I would still be asked why it took so long when I eventually arrived home and would blame the queue at the chippy.

Back in the day, you could get 'scraps' for free with your chips. You could order a portion of chips and they would give you fish bits with them for FREE. Fish bits were basically all the bits of batter from the fish that had fallen off during cooking. A great way to keep their oil clean and offload the bits to customers. Nowadays they have got wise to this and charge you for fish bits, those that do it.

One staple of the chippy that was a must with your food was a can of pop. In our house, our favourite accompaniment with Friday's chippy tea was always a can of Lilt. It was the only can of pop, even to this day, that you could guzzle down fast without getting the HICCURPS which was the hiccup and burp combo (where you did both at the same time through). This phenomenon only ever occurred when drinking a fizzy drink too fast, and it really hurt when you did one. You would then have hiccups for ages after this initial HUCCURP, which would spoil the rest of your tea. For some reason, all other fizzy drinks were really gassy, but Lilt somehow had less fizz and was a great guzzle.:-)

So if you've never tried it, next time yer out shopping grab yourself a can of ice-cold Lilt. Sponsorship deals welcome Lilt. If you'd like to send us a case I'll give it away to members fo The Virtual Tavern ;-) LOL