Thinking

It was seeing someone swatting a fly away that bought this to mind.
 As all who read this blog knew I was in the Catering Business. It would be soon after I had started and as most folks are who start their own Business was desperately poor.
 To be honest I wouldn't get away with the conditions I had in the Café these days but this was around 1970.
 I had the ceilings covered with polystyrene tiles and emulsioned because of the fire risks. The reason for sticking the tiles up was that the ceiling was very uneven. I mention this because first I had no extra fans and as most people smoked the ceiling went a bright yellow due to the smoke.
 The Café faced west so that in the Summer the doors were open but still the place got very hot. Now I have explained just what the place was like.
 This particular day in the Summer it was hot and 4 people came in and my Father was behind the counter and the 2 men came and asked for 4 teas.  This would be in the afternoon. He duly made them the teas and both men took them to where their partners were sitting. Almost immediately one of the men came back with his tea. He was apologetic asking if he could have another cup of tea because 2 flies had dived into the tea. My Father gave the man another tea making some comment about the flies. Soon after the man had sat down, all 4 got up giggling and left the Café. Of course my Father didn't know what had happened so went to the table where they had been sitting. He then saw 3 dead flies in one cup of tea. The other 3 teas had not been touched.
 I was in the kitchen cleaning up and he came in laughing as he told me the story. At the time I was not happy at all but after about 45 years I will laugh at the thought of the odds of that happening.
 It did make me decide that the first thing I was going to have were extractor fans fitted with controls behind the counter. I chose Xpelair as they were the best on the market at that time. I had the 12" size one each side of the café. I had a central door so it was perfect.
 I knew this guy who I went to school with in my early days, when I went to the Secondary Modern School he went to another although I found him intelligent and was a nice guy. In fact he had a shop in Grantham and he came to see me at the seaside. I mentioned to him that the sun was causing a problem. He told me not to worry, he measured my windows up and ordered the venetian blinds. When they were ready he came and fitted them and as he knew I hadn't much money told me to pay him when I could. I managed to pay him about a fortnight later but was grateful for the offer.
 The difference was immense, never again did the tiles discolour and the café was a lot cooler.
 Gradually over the coming few years I turned the Café into more of a Restaurant, spending all what I had on equipment and giving the customers more of a selection of foods. I also had professional signs made so that they could be sited in the window to advertise what we did and the prices we charged.
 This used to bring out what we called snoopers from other eating places. One would see a person with a pen or pencil with a piece of paper jotting down the prices I advertised, this happened each year during my stay there. It used to occur early on in the year before the main Season started. More soon.