We didn't take note of the names of the customers who came into the Chippy probably because we didn't ask, our regulars had the names of the food they ordered...in cantonese. So my Mum would say "Chicken Fried rice is here" to my dad and my dad knew which customer that was(incidently or luckily we never had a regular who had a similiar order).
My brother and I had our nicknames for one or two customers. One particular customer was a guy we called the "Bloody Hell Man". This is because he always said bloody hell a lot or variants of the word bloody in conversations with him. Classics include "Bloody Hell what you up too?", "I am bloody knackered and I am bloody hungy....bloody hell!" To add to his persona he was also a cockney and sounded like Bob Hoskins and to further add to his persona/mysticism he kind of reminded me of Ronnie Barker. He was also a pretty good bowler and laughed at my bowling score when I told him about my first time bowling...."Bloody hell, 70?bloody rubbish! I got bloody 220 I got!"
He was also one of the very few people who place an order by telephone from time to time. The below phone call actually happened, after talking to a friend for half an hour on the phone, Bloody Hell man rang to place an order,I shall to save me typing his name call him BHM in the below transcript.
Phone rings after a long conversation with a friend
ME: Hello
BHM: You off the bloody phone yet?
ME(Chuckling and recognising his voice): Oh hello yes sorry can I take your order?
BHM:Yeah I am bloody starving, a foo young.
ME(Laughing a bit more): What kind of foo young?
BHM: Bloody egg foo young!
Me(Chuckling even more): Erm what kind of egg foo young, erm Chicken?
BHM: Yeah Chicken, bloody hell!
Me: Anything else?
BHM: A portion of chips and fried rice..thats it, can I have it for 8pm please.
Me(Begining to chuckle again): Erm its 8:15 now?
BHM: Yeah I wanted it bloody 15 Minutes ago!
