The old town market café was called La Rendezvous, every Friday dinnertime I had the wonderful sausage chips and beans, the sausage were big thick pork ones, delicious.

The speciality of the house seemed to be the toasted bacon sandwich, and the ladies would call the meals out with practiced voices, that echoed round the small packed café on a rainy afternoon in Runcorn.

After dinner I would sit by the window watching the buses go by and wish I could go home early from work.

Then I would go back to the shop with bean stains on my shirt and tie and toast crumbs round my chin so they always knew what I had been doing.