Daddy's Retail Premises

My dad, who has passed away now, owned a domestic appliance shop wherein I helped out from time to time. He owned several actually. The one in our home town had rats in it. They would scoot underneath the washers and cookers in the back. Rain would leak in through the ceiling. I was working on the roof once, where he stored more of his endless parts/fittings, and almost fell through it.

It wasn’t a place for the faint-hearted. My sister, the receptionist, had a hard time controlling her squeamishness. The cups, should you want a brew, were all filthy. I found the grimiest one I could find once and used some tissue paper to pick a small dead baby rat up and put it in the cup. Then I sneaked up on her and placed it under her nose. I politely asked her if she fancied a cup of tea.

My behaviour (anything for a giggle) made her leave the premises to get a grip of herself. She didn’t see anything like the funny side of it. I found the place stomach-churning too but I didn’t let it show, apart from wearing gloves all the time and being protective of marks or stains on my clothing. My dad was always asking why I needed to wear gloves. He must have thought I was a complete and utter sissy. Bear in mind that I had only just met him after a childhood of absence. We had to get to know each other in a working environment and it was extremely awkward.

When I first met him, he ate a meal from the inside of a detached washer door, because he had no bowls. More alarming than the utensil is the food stuff he consumed. It consisted of minced beef and bananas, eaten cold with a large cooking spoon that was too big for his mouth. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

He would eat his dinner while driving, speaking on the phone at the same time, and writing a phone number down with a marker pen. Rather than use a notepad, he wrote the number on the dashboard interior of the van.

The wages were twenty pounds a day. He had stacks of workers in and out of the revolving doors over the years. I wrote all about it in my autobiography. It’s hilarious. One thing I will say about my dad, he had a never-ending supply of twenty pound notes. Even on his deathbed, when he was clammy with cancerous demise, he pulled one out of his nappy and gave it to me.

This subject is a vast reservoir of material for me and I could write a great many things about his line of work. I never inherited the business like he wanted me to because my heart wasn’t in it. I saw selling dodgy appliances for a living in much the same way as he saw me sat down at a desk on my own writing poncy books about his daughter. I respected his work ethic immensely and a busy business is a busy business, in a way it was a great living, but I’m just not that kind of active manual worker.

There were multiple aspects to the job. Source the appliances, repair them, clean them, sell them. There was a main road outside where he had me clean the items, and I was paranoid that people I knew could see me hunched over scrubbing a manky cooker. I would wait until the traffic had calmed down before getting to it. God forbid a teacher would witness me in wellies with a hosepipe. Not when I’d studied hard through collage.

He operated a market stall two days a week. Being in the public eye hawking second-hand chest freezers was embarrassing.

He would often makes sales in the pub after hours when he was shooting pool. It seemed that everyone at one point or another needed a fridge. There was often big money in it. Selling only two or three items a week meant more than the average weekly wage. Sell double figures and its wonga time.

My dad was great, he’s missed sorely. Every son must say this about their beloved father, but he was a real character. Character is not the word for my dad. He wore a bright orange jump suit and odd shoes. He was also drenched in gold jewelry. Everyone in the town knew him.

R.I.P JACKO