Alec Petrie has run the takeaway at the harbour for twenty-six years. Since the second week of June he has been keeping a record of what he describes as a sustained campaign of prank telephone calls.
The record is a blue notebook beside the till. Each entry has a date, a time, and the substance of the call in his own handwriting. He is up to sixty-one.
He agreed to read a selection aloud.
The book
June 11, 6:40pm. “Asked if the fish was vegan. I said it was fish.”
June 19, 7:05pm. “Wanted to know if the batter was gluten free. Then asked if I did a gluten free fryer. A separate one.”
July 2, 5:55pm. “Woman asked me to put her chips in a tub she was bringing herself. She did bring it. It was a good tub. I still think it was a wind-up.”
July 8, 8:20pm. “Asked whether the Mars bars were locally sourced.”
July 14, 6:15pm. “Asked for the carbon footprint of the chips. Per portion.”
July 22, 7:40pm. “Man wanted to book a table for four. There are no tables. He said he would hold.”
August 3, 6:50pm. “Oat milk.”
“Somebody is putting them up to it. That is the only thing that makes any sense to me. Somebody has got a list of numbers and they are working down it, and they have got as far as me.”
Alec Petrie
The theory
Mr Petrie’s working theory is a radio programme.
He notes that the calls come in clusters, that they are always polite, and that several of the callers sounded to him as though they were reading. He also notes that the accents are, without exception, from a long way south of here, which he initially took as proof of organisation.
It was put to him, gently, at the counter, that the village has had a very large number of visitors this summer and that some of them may simply have been asking.
He considered this for a while and said that if that were the case, then somebody would have asked him something like it before, in twenty-six years, and nobody ever has.
The one he answered
Entry 44 is different, and he turned to it without being asked.
August 26, 6:30pm. “Asked where the haddock comes from.”
He answered that one at some length. The boat is out of the harbour below the shop, he has known the skipper thirty years, and it lands at the pier the same morning it is fried, which he pointed out is rather better than most places that put a sign about it in the window.
He also confirmed, unprompted, that he fries in beef dripping, that he read what the man in Stranraer said about chip thickness earlier this year, and that the man is correct.
“That one was a fair question and I did not mind it. It is a good fish and I am pleased somebody asked. I would just rather they did not ask if it was vegan first.”
Alec Petrie
Where matters stand
The notebook continues. Entry 61 was logged on Tuesday and concerned whether the batter was sourdough.
Mr Petrie has asked this newspaper to state that he is not against anybody, that everybody is welcome in his shop and always has been, and that he will do a portion of chips without the fish for anyone who wants one and always would have.
He would simply like it to stop being called an option.
