Fish Van

“Fish” and “van”. Two lovely words. Not so good for Scrabble, but they might just get you out of a fix on Countdown.

The thing is, they’re not really words you expect to go together. If I were really, and I mean really needing to connect the word “fish” with a mode of transport, I’d probably opt for the more predictable ‘bicycle’. Maybe ‘tricycle’. Possibly ‘rickshaw’ if I were currently East of Greenwich.

Imagine my surprise then, when my idle mid-morning sofa-sitting was interrupted by a man wearing an anorak who’s first words to me as I opened the door were ‘fish van’.

There was a momentary pause. He looked into my eyes hopefully (and in a strictly platonic way I may add), and my brain ran through every memory of my last 29 years on this planet in the hope of somehow connecting these two ill-fitting nouns.

Thankfully my newfound anoraked friend continued, “I drive the fish van”.
“Sorry. We don’t eat fish”, I replied with an annoyance that I was apologising for not liking the one foodstuff he seemed to have made a career out of.
“That’s okay. I do meat as well. Do you want to take a look?”, my clearly Sir Alan Sugar-trained adversary replied.
“Oh. Well… um… we like to support our local butcher on the High Street”, I said. At this point I stood a little taller, and my voice suddenly went into 1950’s BBC Newsreader mode mixed with Telegraph-reader snootiness.
“That’s okay. Do you want to come and have a look anyway?”

Suddenly it was like I was reenacting those Charlie and Archie adverts they put on telly when I was a kid. My brain was broadcasting public service announcements on all frequencies. It was telling me not to play with matches. Not to play on railways. To clunck-click every trip. To follow the Greencross Code. To not go off with strangers. Yes, that was the one we needed now. I knew what to do: I mustn’t wander off with him without telling my Mum first. Would she have her mobile on now?

“It’s parked just around the corner…”

Oh my God. Any second now he’d be offering me some brightly-coloured sweets to entice me to wander around the corner with him and see his meat in his fishy-smelling van.

“Um. I’ve seen it. I think you deliver to one of the houses opposite…”. Please God let it be the case he delivers to a house opposite.

“Oh yeah. Number 38”.

Thank you! “Yes. Well… um… I’ve seen it when you’ve been there. I’ve walked alongside it when you’ve been there, so I’ve seen inside it”.

“Oh. Okay. Thanks for your time”, he said exceptionally cheerily, and went on his way to try his luck with the neighbours.

I came back indoors, resisting the temptation to put the security chain on. I sat on the sofa and let out a sigh of relief at my lucky escape. Then I thought, maybe I’ve just missed something truly magic – maybe it was a van made out of a fish? What if it was a fish driving the van? A halibut chauffeur, or mackerel mechanic? Then I remembered: Fish deliver on bicycles.