Fish and Chip shops

We used to take all our old newspapers to the chip shop, for wrapping paper, the door also had a black blanket down the inside to hide the light, and we used to get muddled up in it if someone was coming in when you was going out. Come to think of it, a couple of teenage girls I knew, were with a couple of yanks one night, the yanks were ok with the fish and chips but the mushy peas they found quite amusing. There was a fair bit of tomfoolery about the whole episode.

Hi all, & hi Midland Red, Coming home late yesterday from a meeting, I brought home fish & chips for Pam & I. A new one for me was adding curry sauce. I tell you what, it was fab. Brought me in mind of our fish chip trip to Crewe that Midland Red & I enjoyed, a few years ago. It's not everyone that goes to Cheshire just for fish & chips, hey!

I can thoroughly recommend a couple of chippies in Crewe, much better though with mushy peas and gravy

Now come on you guys. The best chippies on the planet are those on the market at Grot Yarmouth. Not cooked in oil but artery clogging beef dripping and are super delicious. Whenever we are on The Broads we must call in to Yarmouth for a bag of heart attacks. To swamp them in mushy peas or curry should carry the death sentence.

Yuk! and so say I. One should never mess around with the traditional coastal fish 'n' chips (and a few scratchin's thrown in)

My husband has raved about the chips sold at Great Yarmouth market for years. It must be 60 years ago that he tasted them but he has never forgotten the taste, like you, he says they are the best ever. He says the mushy peas were also delicious.

They've just gone up where I live, the price that is, not the quality. A medium fish now costs as much as large fish did not that long ago.

Happy days, Philip I agree with Dreamtime - "yuk", to curry (wouldn't entertain eating that stuff!) but "chip shop curry sauce" I find a most acceptable addition to either a piece of battered fish or a chicken & mushroom pie Mmmmm!

Between the 1901 and 1911 censuses, and including trade directories in between, I have relations "in the trade" at: 53 West Street, Crewe 117a West Street, Crewe 35 West Street, Crewe 133 West Street, Crewe and as recent as 1939 at 95 Hospital Street, Nantwich I'm sure they all came "highly recommended"!

MR - apologies for the steer away from Coventry and into Cheshire but it's not often I see Crewe mentioned in these pages........ I think there is only one traditional fish & chip shop left on West Street, which as you probably know is the main thoroughfare from the old Crewe Works to the town centre. Of the properties you mention, one was a Polish delicatessen, two are residential properties close to the Polish Social Club and the other is the Bella Mama takeaway. Nantwich is our more affluent neighbour and any property on Hospital Street is likely to be highly recommended these days too! Getting hungry now... tempted with the fish, chips and mushy peas from our chippy on Underwood Lane, all for £3.30 with gravy or curry sauce an optional extra for 70p

It's a small world MR, I drive past there most days. Back in Coventry, our local chippy was at the bottom shops on Winsford Avenue, Allesley Park which opened around 1970 and was owned initially by a Greek or Cypriot gentleman called Andrew. A great novelty for us as the next nearest chippy was probably in Spon End. If memory serves me correctly, our new chippy was formerly a butcher's who had struggled to compete with the nearby Bishop's supermarket built in 1968/9 and opened by the TV and radio personality Simon Dee.

At that time Skybluedave the next nearest chippy would have been the one in Craven Street (now the Shah Bagh Indian takeaway). There is a covenant in force which prevents chip shops, off-licences and the like from being opened in the part of Chapelfields that was formerly the Thomas White estate which is why there were none in-between.

Hi Sky Blue. There has been a chip shop bottom of Whitaker Rd opposite the doctors for at least 35 years. The shop on Winsford Ave was once an ironmongers, a butchers and now a pizza shop and has been for only about six months. The butcher only survived for about a year as he was in competition with the supermarket Nisa that was just behind his shop. It's a long time since the supermarket was owned by Bishops. They left about 30 years ago. After they left the shop was owned by Budgens, KwikSave, Somerfields and now Nisa.

I have used the Whitaker Road chip shop a few times over the years, and remember how good their steak pies were!