Bermondsey Boy by Tommy Steele

Author:Tommy Steele
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141903019
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2008-11-11T00:00:00+00:00

Oh, Sugarbush I love you so

I will never let you go…

The record ended. But I wanted more music, more throbbing bass. The instructions on the front of the machine told me what to do. I obeyed without question, feeling in my pocket for the coins. Five cents one play, six plays a quarter. The coins dropped. The red light flashed impatiently: Make your selection. Make your selection. I tried to focus on the long list of titles running along the machine's front, like rows of gnashing teeth. But all I could see was ‘ “Sugarbush” – Doris Day, A22.’ So I selected A22 six times and the record played continuously for twenty minutes. By then I was well into my ‘film’.

I was sitting at the counter with a steaming cup of Java and ham ‘n' eggs smothered with ketchup, mesmerized by the actions of the short-order cook. That chap ran the diner before your eyes: he took the orders, cooked the meals, washed the dishes, made out the bills, gave the change, cleaned the counter and kept up a lively conversation with the customers. All on his own.

‘Stick a broom up his arse and he sweeps the floor,’ one tar joked.

I couldn't take my eyes off him.

I think that out of all the jobs I have seen performed in the service industry across the world, the short-order cook's is the champion.

He mixed my first chocolate malted and grilled my first hot dog. I ate five that day. Crisp red frankfurters lying on a warmed roll, swimming in mustard and ketchup, topped off with a quarter-inch-thick layer of relish, and devoured in seconds.

Ben Gunn didn't join me: although he, too, was bathing in this brave new world, he didn't warm to the culinary pleasures because of his aching guts. He just sat by the jukebox telling me about some bloke called Vancouver, who came this way in search of new lands. ‘He's buried in a little church in Richmond, Surrey,’ he lectured. ‘Funny place for a man who could have picked the Pacific.’

I nodded in mute agreement, then yelled, in my perfect American, ‘One dog, one malted to go!’

The short-order cook echoed the call, and as he went into his act, I fed my last nickel into the jukebox, inviting Doris to sing us home:

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