The Butcher's Dog

'Are we going to get a doggy, mummy?!?', asked the excited child when she heard her mum say to the butcher, 'Can I have some bones please... [and then under her breath] ...for the dog...'. 

Well that's how it used to be back in the day.  When all you could look forward to for tea was boiled sheep's brains or tripe 'n onions.  No doubt a tasty cheap non-nutritional dinner for the family.  But really, would you unless you had to?  

I catch Martin, my local butcher dropping a pigs head into the meat recycling bin at the back of the shop and shout 'Hey! To some folk that'd make for a lovely Sunday dinner!'.  It does pain Martin, a proper Yorkshireman with very deep pockets, to dispose of it in such a manner.  However, he's also a family butcher with scruples which cause him to walk funny.  So to bin such meaty morsels does make him feel faint but he explains why.  

'Some butchers will use the pig's cheek to add to their sausage meat', he says.  Also that 'there's a lot of glands in the cheek which if not carefully removed aren't very nice if you find them in your sausages'.  Pork pies too I think cos I've had several of them from other places containing what I thought was just bits of gristle.   Ooomph!  I think he's just put me off pork for life.  

I've also been at the back of the shop during deliveries.  Pigs are delivered the day after slaughter...  Beef is delivered after being hung at the abattoir for at least 3 weeks.  It's proper stuff.  Unlike most kids nowadays who think that meat comes in plastic trays from TESCOs, I at least do know that when a pig meets a stun gun it results in pork chops and when a chicken's head meets an electric water bath it often results in Nazi, sorry nasty TESCO chicken nuggets... Urp, I think I'd rather have tripe....  There's nowt nice about the process other than the end product.  

The Howardian Hillock (1) frequently regales me about how he will often order 'pigs cheek' from the menus in Spain.  'A delicacy' he says...  No, it's cos they're Spanish and still living in the 1950's you pillock and will eat everything except for the squeak.  Also of the times when he took schoolchildren on visits to an abattoir back in the day following the animals from slaughter all the way to packaging.  When asked if there is any part of the process they'd like to see again every single one of the girls shout "the slaughtering!".  They do grow them up funny in Pickering you know.  

I also remember the day when Kathryn's 17 year old daughter Julia felt a bit poorly.  She'd been a practicing vegetarian for some 2 years or so and so every shopping trip was all about trying to find some gruesome meat alternative / replacement mush for her.  So we gingerly said, perhaps try a bit of chicken for tea tonight, it might be a bit easier for you to digest?  Dutifully we placed a morsel of chicken thigh and breast in front of her.  She carefully took a bite.  Her eyes opened wide with a fiery glow and... she's in!  Up to her elbows in the chicken carcass and meat gravy.  'Where have you been all my life' she screamed as she hit the fridge like a small carnivore tsunami crashing in to a Japanese poultry farm.  

The interesting conversations at the back of the butchers shop really started earlier this year when I volunteered to deliver meat bread egg and pie orders to many of Martin's customers who were isolating due to the Covid crisis.  I see from data released today in the Government / NHS's green book [which explains the immunisation programme to come] that there are approximately 5 million folk in this country over the age of 75.  Many of whom will remember eating sheeps testicles and crunching on glandular pork pies when they were kids.  Many now of course isolating at home and rightfully wary of travelling to the shops.  

Martin has always had a cronk of an old butchers bike at the front of his shop.  With a bit of TLC I thought yeah now that he is overloaded with customers and now that I am retired we'll get it back on the road and I can then help with local deliveries just like the boy on the Hovis TV adverts.  Or I could use my bike.  Put a bit of bubble wrap in the panniers to aid with insulating and hey how long would it take for me to cover the estate?  Easy peasy!

'Cept there can be at times, I guess, up to £500 worth of meat and bits weighing about the same as a small adult in the back of the van with a route plan that can take me over 30 miles to drive.  Er nah, this isn't a job for a cyclist, even a LEJOG cyclist, especially this particular fat man who towards the end of the run would be breaking into the for sure warm manky orders to nick an emergency pork pie or three when my legs died!

Talking about LEJOG again here is a 15 minute video covering the best bits from my journey in 2018.  I've enjoyed putting this one together and think you'll really enjoy watching it :-)

Anyway, so here I am, 2 or 3 days per week making a bloody nuisance of myself to the boys (2) in the shop.  Telling them all off for the bloody order errors that wreak havoc with my route planning and often results in 2 or more visits to the same customer until it is right.  Of course the boys laugh and look generally in the direction of their boss, Martin.  He's responsible for the order preparations and so obviously a man with too much meat on his mind.  

During the summer months I drove around in my cycling shorts, no not the lycra type as that'd put folk right off their chipolatas.   I'm currently wearing proper trousers cos it's winter and the weather is crap.  I'm amazed at how many customers comment with a 'what no shorts today?'.  'Hey', I retort, 'it's bad enough being in lockdown again without me exposing you to my legs too'.  

Nonetheless this often leads to conversations.  Martin must be thinking where the hell has he got to?  Well the truth is I'll stand and chat for as long as needed with the old folk, many of whom are isolating alone.  I want to.  They want to.  I guess I'm one of the few people to call around and anything is better than sitting in a quiet house with just the clock ticking in the background.  We laugh about silly things like my legs, chat about general health and how one is coping, the weather, you know, spending a little time cos it matters in today's Covid environment.  

When I get back to the shop the arguments start.   Let me pay you Wayne for helping today?  Nope, I'm a volunteer.  Ok then just take your meat today, you don't have to pay.  No no no, I am a customer, I must pay says I in my bestest TESCO customer service SS agent accent.  We laugh, often crossing metaphorical cash swords.  Martin regularly does not show me the display on the contactless chip and pin reader so I know the pirrock has rounded down the price by a couple of pence. 

I've known Martin and the boys for many years.  We always have a laugh when in the shop.  Well I expect they're probably laughing at the fat silly idiot who too often regales them of the mad cycling things that I have done, or plan to do.  The whole volunteer delivery idea started as a result of me seeing his butchers bike at the front of the shop and I knew Martin was delivering stuff after the shop closed.  A very long day for him especially as every winters night by candlelight he squats at home with the central heating off cursing the cost of Christmas Turkeys whilst miserly counting his pennies slowly back into old tin boxes until very early in the morning.  So I thought yeah, perhaps I can help. 

Like many of the old folk out there I am also isolated.  Now significantly less so than some of the folk that I deliver to.  I am socially distanced at their doors and it is great to have a chat with them.  Simply they want to.  I'm happy to.  I've never thought about it before but a life in solitary confinement is hell.  The slow ticking of the clock is a form of mental torture, even if there is a TV in your prison cell of a home.  

For me, helping is not about the money.  Volunteering helps me to avoid a good chunk of the necessary self imposed confinements.  Net result is it is good for me, good for Martin's customers and good for Martin and the boys, who don't always need to have an even longer day at the office doing the deliveries after the shop has closed.  

Anyway, could you imagine how long dry and boring my rambling blogs would become, writing about 50 shades of grey wallpaper, if I didn't volunteer to help?  

Finally to the point of today's ramble.  

Whilst I'm not quite as fit as one, I think I'm now officially the butchers dog.  

Woof!

(1) The Howardian Hillock (aka the Howardian Pillock) - Howard is an octogenarian ex-Cambridge university graduate who became a Geographer working at several schools in the north.  He is shaped like the Howardian Hills (rotund 'n bumpy) and is an intellectual, erudite, er, pillock with no common sense.  

(2) Other than Martin (I'd like to know who supplies him with the laughing gas), the boys are:

Chris - the dancing sausag'eer and expert user of the mincing machine.  He's responsible for all the meat grinding and if you ask him for a large portion he might just give you one.

Andy - Wears a body hairnet cos of a hypertrichosis problem.   He was a rather hairy lion at a circus before becoming a butcher.   Now specialises in game, especially Zebra meat.