#also oops foreshadowing

Jack’s Fish and Chips are the best in the town. He used to like me and if I was sent for the food he’d give me a little bag of wibbits, all the little bits of batter and too small chips. He’s dead now, but his wife and daughter still run it well.

The river’s a mess. You’re more likely to get tetanus than drown in there. There’s all sorts of muck in it; shopping trolleys, car doors, bicycles. One of the boys on the estate said he found a gun in there. I doubt that, because it runs along our part of town before heading in to the nicer side of the tracks, and we’d know about it if someone had really found a pistol. 

When it was founded, as you may guess from the name, they used to drag pig iron and coke out of the hills. Then the mills went up for wool and cotton, and just before my Dad was born I think it was mostly steelwork. Now that’s gone down the pan too. I can’t imagine the town will collapse but...I don’t think it’ll ever be what it was when they built the town hall and high street. Never has been in my lifetime.

People know their place in Cokeworth. You know who’s who in your estate, and who’s not from about. You know whose dad your dad works for and you don’t piss him off. I’ll walk anywhere in London, and I’ve been to the Malfoy estate, but I still feel out of place in the shiny side of Cokeworth. 

We ha- They have a lot of unemployment. Everyone does. Some of the politicians try to appeal to those of my father’s age and blame the blacks or the asians. But we grew up with them. And the men worked with them. You spend a shift every day working next to a man and drinking in the pub after work with him...you get to know him. It’s not a multicultural town but we haven’t had any riots. Still a National Front chapter in Cokeworth though.

It’s a dump and I know I’m one of lucky ones who’ll get out. Most won’t. They’ll be born here, live their whole life a stone’s throw from their childhood home and then die under the shadow of the chimney in a house that should have been condemned years ago. Not me though.