Tebay Services

September 2008

At Tebay services on the M6 the old folks were on their outings. Tightly-curled grey hair and light anorak jacket and slacks and tights and trainers and you eat your bag of biscuits and drink tea from your flask, on the benches by the artificial pond, while the mallards strut and laugh.

Inside the cafeteria, where we choose for our lunch a pork pie and salad, and drink a none-too-bad cup of coffee – surprisingly good quality – a group of disabled young people from a minibus with ‘Lady Taverners’ on the side, and by the window of the cafeteria and overlooking the lake, a pair of women, one black and one white, both absolutely vast, drinking from large paper beakers of coca-cola, and business chaps in their shirts and ties and suits, who eat like us for the most part, with plates from the salad bar. The elderly foursome behind me are talking in London accents about A-e-mee, who may have been a granddaughter or something.