Scrap 33

SCRAP 33
Frank has been waiting around for 6 hours at a bakery in Gateshead for a return load. The transport manager has given very specific directions for the safe loading and carriage of the precious cargo and Frank has been quite happy to take a kip while the factory men have been stacking trays of cream cakes in the back of the 8 ton truck.
Although fast asleep, Frank can be heard laughing loudly at something in his dream. He is disappointed to be interrupted by one of the men slapping his hand on the window. ‘All done bonny lad, he shouts, offering up a clipboard for Frank to sign the attached delivery note.
Frank signs the note, checks that the doors are locked, uses the factory lavatory and after a quick wash he climbs back into the cab and sets off for the supermarket depot in Bedfordshire.

Five miles down the road he pulls the truck into the first secluded layby he reaches and selects a tray of 36 assorted cream cakes from the load, which he props carefully onto the passenger seat. Lovely; this will keep him going.
He retunes the crackly radio to find some sort of music and sets off once more, cramming the first of the cakes into his cake hole. Chocolate éclairs, his favourite, are soon despatched to their doom and he starts on the vanilla slices, pausing for a few minutes to cough and splutter up some puff pastry crumbs which have gone down the wrong way.
By the time he reaches his destination, the load is short by 3 trays, two of which Frank has scoffed and a third which is sitting wrapped in a pillow case in the tool box at the back of the cab.
The load is removed and placed in cold storage, the delivery note signed and not a word said about any shortages. Frank thanks the men for the cup of tea, declines the offer of a cake, and drives off towards Sheerness docks.
Frank is content ambling along on a sunny afternoon. There is no reason to rush as he won’t get the truck loaded until morning and he has nowhere in particular to go, for a change.
The radio seems determined to offer only country and western music but anything is better than nothing to keep him awake and even Frank can’t eat cakes all day. He sings along to the tunes, mostly the wrong words but in a surprisingly tuneful baritone.
He used to sing in church as a boy soprano and made £10 a time with his rendition of Ave Maria at weddings. His father and teachers had wanted him to take up a scholarship at the Westminster School but he refused to go, much to their dismay. He had no intention of dressing up in ridiculous clothes and mixing with a bunch of snobs, he had protested.
And so it was that Frank was sent to the local secondary school, where he learned how to fight, steal and play truant, which was all so much more fun than doing as you are told.