In 1999, Loaded paid homage to the newspaper vendor. The “Godfather of Good News”, as he was dubbed back then, won the award for being “The Greatest Living Englishman.” Since news is all gloom and doom nowadays and nobody reads the newspaper ‘cos the robots have invaded the media, we wanted to pass this award onto a man worthy of glory in 2024.
The Burger and Ice Cream Vendor. The jewel in the crown of the British seaside town. The master of trades where there’s buckets and spades. The giver of gluttonous glory, delectable delights and mighty fine dining indeed. The man at the finish line of an arduous family car trip to locate a spot of summer sand. Gents, build your buns and fill your cones. A full-on tonsil tickling awaits…
I must admit, I’m not a fan of the 99 Flake. It’s the moment Cadbury invaded the swirl with the stick, the soft with the hard, the lick with the bite. A day at the seaside has to start with a cone though, doesn’t it?
See, the thing is, getting the kids in the car is the start of a civil war, the drive itself is like dragging Bin Laden to the church and when you finally arrive, the queue makes you feel as if you’re waiting for the boat back to safety. Something cold and a decent pint makes everything better. Then the kids can piss about on the pebbles and the misses can chase you round with the factor 50, blocking every ray of sun you’ve waited all year for.
All hail Fred, the King of the Cones. Along with his wife Hayley, Fred opened East Beach this summer and has already salvaged thousands of seaside excursions for battered blokes. (His fish ‘n’ chip batter ain’t bad either).
Hayley does the swirly whirly bits and runs around pulling punter’s pints, while Fred slaves away in the kitchen making the best beach burgers you’ll taste this side of a Buddhist’s bedroom.
Making ice creams looks fun, but my first and only attempt at the Mr Whippy produced a monstrosity that was far from a climax in a cone. It resembled a post-digestion dog’s dinner. I needed Hayley to help me.
As if mastering the melt machine is enough to contend with, imagine having to put up with a thousand screaming kids yelling at you about how they wanted a different flavour. Then there’s the onslaught of bees that find their way into the serving window to fight with the flies on your face. And the parents who need change for a fifty and don’t even want the flake. Drop me out!
But there is a plus side to being the King of the Cones, and it comes in the shape of big, fat juicy burgers and fish ‘n’ chips that smell even better than the ones at the van you bunked detentions for on a Wednesday. They’re your breakfast, lunch and dinner menu, since you don’t leave the place until after dark, and arrive for work the next morning before your toothbrush timer got chance to give you the smiley face.
If you’re Fred, you live at work, and you’re paid handsomely for it. “On a good weekend we make thousands,” he says. “We don’t have time to go anywhere to spend it, so we might invest in a bottle of plonk to go with our romantic evening meals at the chip fryer.”
Decent food and wads of cash might sound appealing, but don’t even think about quitting the desk jockey life to set up a beach cafe. Remember when you last played Monopoly with auntie Joan and lost count of the change when you broke her heart and bought Mayfair? The cashing up in a place like this is a killer and only a man with years of experience pretending to like the look of someone else’s kids could run a seaside diner.
If you’re still tempted, think about investing in a decent deodorant to drown out the smell of the day’s duties and get an extension lead for your smart watch before it melts under the weight of 30k steps a day.
So next time you take an envious glance at that bloke ringing the bell with his cushty beach business, get down on one knee, pray for forgiveness and don’t ask for your burger well done.
