Jones the butcher glared at Mrs Pike.
“There’s nothing wrong with my sausages!” he shouted, wrapping a link of pork sausages in greaseproof paper and handing them to another customer.
“I’ll have you know they’re freshly made this morning from the finest pork in the south of England!”
Mrs Pike huffed.
“Well, my Frank is feeling as sick as a dog, Mr Jones! And he had two of your bangers for breakfast. How do you explain that?”
Mr Jones shook his head.
“It could be anything! Did he eat any eggs as well?”
Mrs Pike shook her head.
“Of course not. Any eggs we have on the ration go into my cakes and pies.”
Mr Jones walked to his sink and washed his hands.
“Well, I did hear that Joe Walker was selling eggs on the black market this week, that’s all…”
Mrs Pike shuffled.
“If you’re sure that no other customers have had problems, then perhaps it is from somewhere else. Or stomach flu,” she said sweeping out of the shop.
Captain Mainwaring walked in.
“Any problems with the mother of that stupid boy, Corporal Jones?”
Mr Jones shook his head.
“No, Captain Mainwaring. My shop has the strictest food safety standards in Walmington-on-Sea. I’ve got the paperwork to prove it!”
Jones walked into the back room and opened a filing cabinet.
He returned with a bundle of paper.
“Here it is!” he said.
“Council inspections, reports from the Ministry of Food…”
Mainwaring nodded.
“It’s all here, Corporal Jones. It’s a shame you have to spend so much of your time on this paperwork. We need an experienced man like you on watch for the Home Guard as often as possible.”
Jones’s stood to attention.
“Yessir!” he said.
“Maybe one day, someone will make machines to do this stuff for us. Perhaps they could store all the documents in those machines in a way we could all access them wherever we are in the world.
“I could do my paperwork while I stood watch and not have piles of it in my back room…”
Mainwaring shook his head.
“Oh no, Jones, we need you alert! An invasion could come at any minute…”
Jones pulled a broom handle from under his counter.
“I’m ready for them, sir!”
Mainwaring passed him a ration book.
“Mrs Mainwaring wants some mince, Jones. She’s planning a cottage pie tonight.”
Jones put the mince in greaseproof paper and handed it over.
“Right you are, Captain Mainwaring,” he said.
As he left, Captain Mainwaring looked back and said: “You’d need a good system for those machines to work. Something to pull all the documents together. What would you call it?”
Jones smiled.
“Mango, after a juicy fruit I saw once in Africa,” Jones said.
Mainwaring laughed.
“I like it, Corporal Jones. You should patent that!”
Find out how Mango’s online compliance software benefits your food business. Book a free demonstration which will be delivered via Zoom. We can help you achieve the ISOs you need, too. Call Penarth Management on 029 2070 3328 or email info@penarth.co.uk
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