Virus won't stop John bringing home the fish
While millions of people are confined to their homes during the lock down, John Perry leaves the house at 5.30am in the morning for the start of a 14-hour day.
John, who runs a door-to-door fishmonger service, is busier than ever, and has found himself travelling the length and breadth of the country to source the fish for his growing number of customers.
With the Scottish fishermen shutting up shop, and his normal suppliers opting to close during the lock down, John has been forced to look for new sources. This has meant journeys to Bristol, Grimsby and Hull to keep his customers in fish.
But while the supplies have been hard to come by, demand has soared, with orders doubling since the pandemic began.
John, who lives in Chesterton, near Bridgnorth, delivers fish door-to-door mainly around the Wolverhampton, Dudley, Bridgnorth and Albrighton areas. He took over the round in October last year, replacing Jon Spencer who had been in the job for 31 years.
"It was meant to be a nice quiet job to ease me into retirement, but I'm now busier than I've ever been," says John, who is 64.
"I used to buy a lot of fish from Peterhead, but for three or four weeks there was nothing coming from Scotland.
"The transport stopped completely for a while. It was nothing to do with any ban, but with all the pubs shutting overnight, fish shops closing, and many of the supermarkets not stocking fresh fish, parts of the supply chain decided it was not economic, so we had to find alternative methods of getting the fish delivered.
"We started using courier services. There was still fish coming in from Brixham, so I went down to Bristol to meet some people halfway. I also drove up to Grimsby and Hull to source fish."
Soared
Since then, John says getting the fish is now a little easier than it was a few weeks ago, but prices have increased as supplies have dwindled.
John delivers to about 250 homes in a typical week, clocking up to 400 miles around Bridgnorth, Wolverhampton, Albrighton, Kinver, Stourbridge, Dudley and Wall Heath. But his trips to the coast have extended his working hours into the weekend.
Meanwhile the number of people wanting to buy the fish has soared.
"In the beginning, people who normally had some were buying extra fish to put in the freezer, just so they had some back-up in case it stopped altogether," he says. Since then, he has had a large number of orders from people who had never bought from him before. This, he says may be down to people not wanting to leave their homes, or struggling to find fresh fish in the shops.
Social distancing measures have also had an impact on how he goes about making his deliveries.
"We keep the two-metre distancing, and we are now able to take contactless card payments," he says. "Some of the customers leave a coolbox on the step, and we are able to take payment over the phone."
