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In the 1980s the fish and chip shops of this sceptred isle were so busy on Friday nights that a seemingly-permanent inverted C of stomach-rumbling customers lined the windows, waiting patiently for their weekly injection of deep-fried goodness, a reward for five days of shoulders to the wheel of good old-fashioned hard graft.
Through the prism of nostalgia, several things prevail. Firstly, this inverted C of humanity never extended beyond the boundary of the shop door or reduced so that it was anything less than the entire circumference of the — in the case of Northampton — Blue Sea Fish Bar.
Secondly, this was a weekly tradition which transcended the season. In the height of summer, the inverted C would stand sweltering in flip flops, Bermuda shorts (worn by people with no comprehension of where Bermuda actually was and certainly no inclination to ever stand on a surfboard), and ‘wife beater’ vests sported by men embracing toxic masculinity at least two decades before a term even existed and for whom the description of said garment was a genuine lifestyle choice rather than ironic shorthand.
(What then, of women who wore wife-beaters? Is the correct terminology for fashion garments worn by that gender husband-beaters? It’s possibly a moot point — the women who wore such items were more than capable of beating anyone, regardless of…
