125 The Great Choc Ice Robbery

January 24^th

The Gills were at home again in the FA Cup, this time against fourth division Peterborough. After scraping past fourth division Newport in the previous round and getting thrashed at Barnsley just the week before, I didn’t know what to expect.

Gillingham 5 Peterborough 1

A thumping win put Gillingham into the fifth round with a real chance of drawing one of the big boys. I hoped for Manchester United, at home. Instead they got second division Watford, away.

At the end of the month I turned fifteen. In a few weeks I'd be leaving school yet I still didn't know what I’d be doing. Till then I had more important things to worry about like Gillingham’s battle against relegation and wondering if I could pull off a daring raid on The Dewdrop.

The idea of raiding the pub came about by chance. When closing the gate at number 3 Begonia Avenue one night – the last house on my Evening Post round – I decided, on impulse, to nip across the road to The Dewdrop and buy a little treat for the traipse home.

The pub had three entrances spread around its wide frontage; lounge to the left, public bar to the right, off sales in the middle. A man was coming out of the off sales just as I got there. Though I caught the door before it shut, I cursed my luck when I spotted the barmaid disappearing, as a long wait for service seemed likely if the pub was busy. After perusing the chocolate bars and crisps in a glass case on the bar, I switched my attention to a fridge near the door and selected a Midnight Surprise choc ice. Two minutes of kicking my heels later, it dawned on me that I needed to activate the bell. Thus, after opening the door a little – Ching-ching – and closing it again, the barmaid appeared.

On the way home I got stuck into my choc ice, a pale green minty ice cream coated in a thin layer of plain chocolate. It was delicious – delicious enough to wish I had another, and how easy it would have been, I reflected, to nick an extra one. If I had the nerve.

Operation Midnight Surprise was triggered the following week when a lone customer entered the off-sales. Outside I waited, loitering to one side of the door. Ching-ching went the chime, as the customer came out and I slipped in before the door closed. As before, I found myself alone and I didn’t mess about when I raised the lid on the fridge. Spotting an open carton of Midnight Surprises, I scooped it up and dropped it in my newspaper bag. Then, after activating the door bell to bring the barmaid, I made a token purchase and left.

Nine choc ices! Bloody hell!

The first was delicious; the second was not. I gave up on the third and chucked it when I suddenly felt sick. The rest got shoved into a hedge at the top of Milsted Road, an act that brought its own misery. My brothers and little sister would have loved such a treat but taking them home was out of the question. Dad had a nose for things that weren’t right and it wasn’t hard to imagine him denouncing me round the lughole. Just thinking about it made me feel worse. Stricken with guilt and on the verge of throwing up, I never wanted to see a Midnight Surprise again.

Gillingham’s cup run ended with 2-1 defeat at Watford. As one of the day’s least glamorous ties there was little media interest in the game but I followed it as best as I could on TV and radio. It seemed the Gills were never in it and the goal they scored, when it came, was only a late consolation. A shame, as the FA Cup had given us a lot of excitement that year and brightened a poor season. Meanwhile, George Best was making history, scoring six times for Manchester United in an 8-2 win at Northampton.