In Praise of Fish and Chips!

(Happy memories of an impoverished and decidedly malnourished youth!)

I luv me fish an’ chips, I do – all ‘eaped up on me plate
Wiv lots of salt an’ vinegar, an’ smellin’ really great!
I know I shouldn’t eat ‘em, ‘cos like pies an’ cakes an’ bread,
They’re full of carbo-somethin’ what makes yer waistline spread.

But they’re still me favourite diet, jus’ like they’ve always bin,
An’ they’ve kept me innards ‘appy since I was small an’ thin!
When I was just a little bloke, it used ter be a treat
Ter go inside the chip shop at the bottom of our street

Clutchin’ in me grubby ‘and six pennies, big an’ round,
An’ sniff that luv’ly chippie smell an’ ‘ear the sizzlin’ sound!
The bloke would stand beside ‘is vats an’ shovel chips about
While ‘is missus took yer money an’ ‘anded parcels out!

Them parcels, they was burnin’ ‘ot, but’ when I got outside,
I’d gobble up them fish an’ chips the chippie bloke ‘ad fried!
But that was when I was a kid, an’ nowadays we’re plied
With Burger Kings an’ Big Macs, an’ chooks Kentucky Fried.

An’ though I’m old an’ fat now, I think back an’ smack me lips
At the fondly-savoured memory of them luv’ly fish an’ chips!

 

Gerry Forster