So I found myself needing to visit a relative in the old mining areas of West Yorkshire, which is a good two hour drive from the Asylum. By 6.00pm on a Saturday night I'd almost reached my destination, but was a bit peckish and so I thought I'd grab some fish and chips.
I have a tendency to always take the opportunity to get some fish and chips when I'm in that odd part of the world because a) they're the best fish and chips anywhere in England b) they won't cost you £6 or so like they do up here for some reason - despite the fact that we're nearer to the sea and c) I grew up there so I know that both a) and b) are true.
At the time, I happened to be passing through the village I was born and grew up in so headed for what is widely regarded to be the best chip shop in the village. I parked in the car park of the pub opposite and was reminiscing on various escapades that had taken place there (and the fact that the legendary Geoffrey Boycott learned his craft on the cricket pitch behind the pub), when I noticed that the chip shop was closed. On a Saturday tea-time/evening? Most odd.
Perhaps there had been a death in the family? I wasn't too perturbed as when I was a boy, this village had no less than five chip shops. Granted, it is rumoured to be the largest village in Europe (in terms of the area of land it covers and depending on who you believe) but that's still a lot of chippies. Despite this, I never saw a fat kid back in the 70's and 80's probably due to the fact that we were all, between eating chips, busy climbing trees, playing football, tigs, war and Northern Ireland (a particularly violent version of hide and seek - hide, and if you're found, you get beaten up) and throwing our Mums' and Sisters' sort of empty hair spray bottles on camp fires to wait for them to explode. Clearly, we were bored waiting for the invention of the internet and the Playstation.
Anyway, I know at least three of these chip shops still exist, so I headed off to the next one en route. That was shut too. Maybe its something or other to do with Christmas, I thought hopefully. Perhaps there's a local chip shop owner's Xmas party going on.
By the time I'd driven back through the village for a mile or so (I told you it's big village) and found the third chip shop shut I was beginning to think that once more the Quakers had taken over the village and banned chip shops from opening at the same time that the pubs were open. The fact that there were pubs open discounted this theory though so I decided to carry on to see my venerable relative safe in the knowledge that there were two chippies in that smaller village.
You can see where this is going can't you? Yes, they were both shut too.
So I drove to the next village, getting increasingly desperate. The situation there was even worse. The one chippy they used to have (it is a sad, one chippy sort of place) is now a pizza place. Whilst I have nothing against pizza... I was a mission for fish and chips!
My this time, clearly some fuse had gone in my head and I was determined to find some fish and chips even if I had to travel all the way to the wilds of bloody Barnsley.
The next place I tried, after clocking up at least ten unnecessary miles, was the village where I went to high school. Now I haven't been there for some years, but I knew there was a very popular chippy in the centre of the village where three roads all meet and I was confident they would still be in business. They are - but they're now a Thai takeaway. What was worse, was that the road layout (that already involved six sets of traffic lights, a triangular road junction and random lane layout) had changed such that whichever way I seemed to go, I was funneled in to the car park of a massive TESCO that wasn't there when I was a youth answering randomingly ringing public phone boxes.
I'd just put this Tesco top of my arson list without even setting foot in the place, when I became so stressed that I panicked, got in the wrong lane and found myself heading out of the village. I made a random right turn in to an estate thinking I could do a U-turn and then realised my mistake.
The estate I'd turned in to is known as the "Scotch Estate". Given the fact that this unofficial local name is never written down, etymologists are not sure if the real name is "the Scotch Estate" or a corruption of an earlier version, "the Scot's Estate". It is, accordingly to local legend, so named as it was built to accommodate and massive influx of Scottish miners at a time when there were so many pits that Yorkshire had run out of men, children and half-starved ponies of its own. Thus, either name seems appropriate.
The Town Planners and architects of the time had veered away from straight, terraced streets for the working classes, and had gone all curvy - like space-time near a black hole - and so this estate is a veritable warren of crescents, dead ends, semi-crescents and bend sinisters. Indeed, it's so hard to get out of, that if you put Hampton Court in the middle of it you'd have a world class tourist attraction. How anyone ever got to work in a morning or found their way home is a mystery still awaiting a solution.
It also has a bad reputation haven fallen on hard times. I can't comment as I don't know it intimately and it may be unfounded - in the same way that Auschwitz is probably a nice village really. Anyway, all I had to do was U-turn.
The problem was there was a car behind me. When I say behind, I mean it was obviously being driven by an almost blind collector of registration numbers. So I did the obvious thing and took a left. The car behind followed. I took another left. He followed. I did a right, a right, a double left, and left, right, left and a dummy left. He was still behind me.
At this point I was convinced there was a contract on me. So I did the only sane thing t do. I stopped. Right in the middle of the road.
I'd expected to hear the sound of metal crushing metal, but instead there was simply a mild screech of tyres on tarmac. I waited for my door to be flung open to find myself face down in the gutter with a gun against the back of my head being told to prepare to shuffle off my mortal coil (I usually have trouble getting out of a t-shirt, yet alone a mortal coil). Instead there was the blare of an angry horn.
That gave me an odd sense of relief. Contract killers or the NSA or MI-5 don't announce their assassinations with the honking of horns. It honked again. Then the car behind me mounted the pavement and continued on its way, with the occupant making hand gestures that would have got him a job at Mandela's memorial service.
I was of course relieved. I was also totally lost in the Scotch/Scot's Estate.
I can honestly say, that night was the only time I've needed a Sat Nav to get out of a housing estate.
It did the trick though. I suddenly found myself at the junction of the main round. There to the left was the evil red glow of Tesco... to the right, next to the butcher's, The Golden Cod Fish Shop - and it was open!
I don't usually park on double yellows, but this was an exceptional occasion. I leapt out of the car and entered the empty shop. A friendly assistant asked what I wanted...
"Fish and chips please..."
"Ah dun't know what it is toneet, everyone's afta fish." For an awful moment I thought he was going to tell me they'd run out of fish - but no, it was idle banter. So I told him my tale...
"There must be sommat goin on - t'other fish shop three doors down int opan neether."
"Must be my lucky night then"
"You're reet. These are best fish n chips in Yorksha."
And indeed they were... if only for the effort. When I finally got back to my relative's and explained why I was late she made me a cuppa and said "Are they good then?"
"Very good. A bit skimpy on the portion of chips though. Can't complain for £3.90"
She raised her eyes to the heavens and issued the famous Yorkshire battle cry "How much? They're only £3.40 over the road! You should have gone there."
