An Earthy Satire for These Difficult Times

With all the twists and turns of parliamentary activity this week, coupled with a chest infection, it's little wonder that I haven't been sleeping too well.  It's also a long while since I regaled my readers with my dreams ... so here goes!

The scene is somewhere near Sevenoaks in a couple of years' time; I'm outside a small greengrocer's shop.  I can tell it's a greengrocer's by the sign that says, "H & B Cobb - Fruit & Veg" but the absence of any produce makes me question even that.  I step inside and ask Henry Cobb, "How's business?"  "Doing fine!" is the firm reply. I look around at the almost empty shelves and back to him in disbelief.  "Turnover has shot through the roof!" he says, "I've got five tons of golden delicious arriving shortly.  In fact," he turned to the window, where a white transit van had just pulled up, "that's them now - he told me he's got two left."

I was puzzled.  That van couldn't carry five tons of anything; nor two tons for that matter.  The door opened and the van driver entered, carrying a paper bag in one hand and a sack in the other.  He put the bag on the counter and the sack on the floor and went out; seconds later he returned with another sack, which joined the first.  "Here's the two that were left," he told the proprietor and added, pointing to the sacks, "and here's your SHIT."  Unfazed by the remark, Henry told him "Thanks" and invited him to help himself to a cup of tea, "You know where it is."  I wondered whether I'd heard correctly and peeked into one of the sacks.  Neither was closed and each was stuffed full of little forms, neatly stapled in sets.  On the top of each was the heading "Self Help In Transit".

When the driver re-appeared, mug in hand, Henry's concern was for the paper bag.  "When you said you had two left, I thought you meant two hundredweight at least," he gestured to the bag, "not just two apples."  He hesitated, and I could see the cogs turning.  "I shall have to sell these for £15 or £20 each ... no.  I'll shut the door and Brenda and I will spend the afternoon sorting this lot out.  The apples will do for our lunch."  He turned to me and laughed. "We call it 'shit-shovelling'"  My blank look clearly demanded further explanation.

"Tom here has just been down to the lorry park.  People go down there to get the produce as fresh as they can, straight from the trucks off the ferry.  The buyers and the lorry drivers then fill in these chits, Tom collects them along with whatever stock they've got left and brings them to me, and the trucks spin round and get on the next ferry back to France.  Two apples apart, I've got paperwork here for 5 tons of apples.  We now contact the buyers to get paid for them." he smiled, "Simples!"

It might be simple to him; to me it seemed daft.  I asked him how likely he was to get money on the face of these scraps of paper.  "It depends.  Most of the people I deal with are pretty honest, I can get about 70% out of these and that keeps me going.  Some folks have a hard job to get 40 or 50%, and they suffer.

The scene changed to a lorry park just off the M20.  I'd just come back with Tom to see where those SHITs had come from.  As we approached the park, he'd pointed out a couple of tents with signs outside 'i-TURD' and said, "These are the cowboys ... don't trust them."  We now walked up to a tidy wooden shed, with the same sign outside.  Waiting to go in were pairs of mostly men, but a few women were amongst them, and I even spotted two women together.  Tom explained, "The buyers go and deal with the truckers who've got what they want after they've seen the goods and reckon they're fair value.  They then come here, and fill in the paperwork.  They go back to the truck, the goods are exchanged for the papers - the SHIT - and the buyers go off happy.

"Then I come along, and meet the trucker who's supposed to be selling 5 tons of apples to Henry Cobb, and find he's got diddly squat left.  Sometimes, like Henry was expecting, he'll have half a load, and I have to wait until I can get what's left into my van."  I was beginning to see how it worked, but it all seemed very dodgy.  Tom showed me what went on in the shed.

To my amazement, here was a most civilised set-up rather like the traffic offices I'd known in the past but, instead of smart computer systems, there were big ledgers and hand-written forms.  I discovered that i-TURD stood for in-Transit Ultimate Receiver Delivery, which was printed on the top of the form that the truckers were completing.  The buyers, the ones who would be taking goods away with them, completed a SHIT accepting receipt of the goods.  The two completed forms were then taken to the desk, entered into the ledger, stamped and stapled together and given to the trucker.  He then gave the goods to the buyer and kept the paperwork to pass to the courier ... Tom.

It was clearly a system that was open to misuse and fraud but, as I found out when I spoke again to Henry, it meant that goods got to the end-user quicker and in better condition that would be the case if they had to wait for the trucker to deliver them to him and him to arrange the deal with the buyer ... not to mention warehousing costs.  It had grown up quickly and unofficially, but was now a recognised way of processing perishable goods.  Yes, there were rogues, but they soon got their come-uppance one way or another.

"What about the tax-man?" I asked, "How do you keep track of everything?"  For a brief moment Henry Cobb looked worried.  "You're not from the Revenue, are you?"  Being reassured that I was not, his face relaxed again and he made the common suggestion of a physical impossibility that that official might attempt, before explaining that he didn't bother to keep accounts.  A lot of his business was in cash and, so long as he made enough to keep Brenda and himself, he was content to carry on that way.