01/11/2026
Not sure how many can remember 35 years ago? Bryan Adams was number 1 in the charts (Isn’t he still?) John Major had taken over from Maggie and I came to Arnside Chip Shop. I wasn’t sure for how long, it was just a great chip shop and I needed to work.
I don’t know how many remember me taking over the shop from David and Judith Rhodes. They had been here for 7 summers, It took ages for me to think I wasn’t just standing in for them. I had brown hair then, I’m not sure I’d started shaving. Just look at the picture, I was fresh faced.
Simon will know but I can’t remember when he left school and was shoehorned in to working with me, Michael followed and eventually Robin. Gemma flirted with working in the summers between Uni years, but she managed to escape being permanent.
It was the week following half term, it had been a glorious Indian summer. I remember driving over from Lancaster and the weather was crazy warm. Then after Bommy night the caravan parks closed (they did that then) Trade plummeted and I thought “What have I done?” I can now understand why they dragged out the sale to cover all Summer!
Anyway we struggled through the first winter and the Spring/Summer was an eyeopener. We were open until almost midnight over the weekend. It was all work with not much time for pleasure. I must have been one of the only ones who was glad there was a big recession which allowed us to start closing at 10.00. Nobody stopped to the bitter end in the pubs then staggered to the chippy. At the end of the first summer, literally the week after, the extraction caught fire. I remember seeing if I could turn the gas off in the cellar, but on seeing the extraction glowing red I thought better of it. Came back upstairs to find a customer still at the counter. “I’m waiting for my burger” I took the burger out of the fryer, into a bun and he was on his way. Sylvia who was working that day said “He didn’t pay for that!” Ah well. It did mean we could have another range. The shop around it still remained a s..thole though. That was changed a couple of years later. The first of many modernisations.
Not sure how but the next 35 years flew by and we arrived at today. In the meantime we extended my lease, took over the Photogenic Gallery from Martin and Penny Rowe and turned the front shop into a café. Well, why not? It couldn’t be much harder than just running a takeaway, could it?!!
Thanks, Arnside, for the memories, half my life has involved being here. I suppose I might be classed as a local or is that pushing it? I do know that some customers came in as kids with their parents, now their children are bring in their own offspring!
Of course we have had many staff working with us over the years, a lot which have become friends and more. Simon even marrying Sarah, and hopefully may be they will look back fondly about working at the chippy.
