There is nothing like a good sandwich – so the news about Pret a Manger closures saddens me

I’ve always been a sandwich fan. Many years ago, I got sacked from a summer job making sandwiches on St Annes pier for being overly enthusiastic with my sandwich fillings. Some years later that pier burnt down, complete coincidence I assure you.

That was back in the Seventies and since then there has been a complete revolution in the role of the sandwich in our lives, after all, these days there are so many different types of bread and so many delicious things to stuff that bread with.

As for the popularity of the high street sandwich chain, I remember when Pret a Manger first landed and discovering the joy of a decent take-away latte and a properly filled sandwich, “all the way to the edges thank you”. To this day, my regular “go to” choice is the egg mayonnaise with a just a touch of cress – dull I know, but a good egg mayo sandwich is a glorious thing. I’m also a big fan of their chicken and avocado combo, their bright green pea soup and the instant pick me up of the Pret ginger shot.

The news that the number of Pret outlets is shrinking is depressing but inevitable. As a freelancer, pre-Covid-19 I used to go into the West End probably twice a week and I would say that on 95 per cent of those trips I had a Pret breakfast or lunch, sometimes both, and if I was staying in town to see a show, then feel free to add a Pret supper to that tally.

After all how much easier could it get? They were on every corner and I like their stuff, only I don’t really go into town any more and hence my Pret consumption has dropped dramatically. In fact I can tell you exactly how many Pret sandwiches I’ve eaten in the past five months, two, both egg and both back in May when I was recording an audiobook in Soho.

Oh and a salmon and pickle rice bowl after an emergency trip to see a dermatologist on Harley St in July. And that’s it, when I think about how much money I have saved on Pret takeaways since lockdown, I should have enough to buy myself an E-Type Jaguar, but the fact is, just as the Pret bill has diminished, so have the earnings.

These days I’m making my own sandwiches, which lets face it, is no great hardship, after all what is a sandwich? Its just two slices of multi-seeded granary bread, spread with low fat cream cheese, before adding a combination of rocket, finely sliced radish, chopped spring onion, a wafer or two of rare British beef, a smear of American deli mustard, all served up with a dill pickle and lashings of mayonnaise. Hmmm, this is possibly why I have blouses that I can longer longer get my fat arms into.

Home-made sandwiches have no portion control, no one is standing over you saying, “Actually we don’t do ham with cheese, tomato and pickle”, like back in my St Annes pier job days.

The fact is sandwiches have always loomed large in my life, being on the road gigging for great chunks of my adult life, I remember well the arrival of the M&S food hall in motorways service stations up and down the country. Finally us performers were saved from a diet of very poor petrol station bilge – and some of us even got rid of our scurvy.

As for the domestic sandwich, being a rubbish cook for many years, my culinary stand by has always been a magnificent sandwich. I’d have served them at dinner parties had they been socially acceptable. Instead, like any non-cook, I used to order in an Indian takeaway and then feed my family on left over chicken tikka and smashed onion bhaji sandwiches for the next two days.

Funny isn’t it how life goes round in circles. I was standing in the kitchen the other day, making myself a simple tuna, sweetcorn, red onion, black olive, watercress and mayo (with a squeeze of lime) baguette, remembering how in the pre-high street sandwich chain days, friends of mine used to cycle round town delivering home-made sandwiches to office blocks and work spaces. One mate in particular used to make vats of coronation chicken in her bath before driving around London in a Morris Minor selling her wares (no congestion charge and parking was easier in those days).

All this reminiscing got me thinking, with so many people working from home these days, maybe it would be a good time to start up a local home-made sandwich delivery service?

I could cycle around on a charming sit-up-and-beg bicycle with a wicker basket full of fancy sarnies strapped to my handlebars, feeding all the south London freelancers with my exotic bready snacks. Not only would I be supplementing my income, but imagine how fit I’d be?

“Anyone for a peanut butter and sliced mango butty? That’ll be £7.99 thank you.”

I never said I’d be cheap.