Trailer Tales

This page is about the times we’ve had with the wonderful cheese trailer. I’d never seen one until I came to Suffolk, where there were four of them. One up in Norfolk somewhere, that I saw in 2000 at Halesworth, in the Thoroughfare. Two at Bury St Edmunds Market. One of them, the one we eventually bought some time later, at Woodbridge Market. The idea is simple. Get a catering trailer. Put a big chiller cabinet in it. Fill it with cheese. Trail it around fairs, markets, wherever you can. Sell cheese.

We’ve had some fun times with the trailer and one near-tragedy as well. This page and the posts here shares the stories we’ve had and the ones we’ve heard. Most of them happy. Some of them odd.

Start thinking about packing up at about four this afternoon, it’s getting dark and the customers seem to be afraid of vampires or something; whatever the reason, they’re thin on the ground this end of the day. Clean-up the cutting boards, clean-up the knives and spray them with anti-bacterialogical magic stuff, wipe down the surfaces with it too. Then put the boards and the knives and the scales and the kitchen roll in the box under the chiller, on the floor where it can’t slide about in the trailer. Then stow everything that can move or hurl itself onto the floor in one of the two sinks. The washing-up liquid, hand sanitiser, nailbrushes, cleaning brush and the microbiological spray itself.

Boil a final urn full of water and while it’s boiling go outside the trailer, roll-up the Sole Bay Cheese banner, take down the bravely fluttering red, white and blue bunting and put it to one side, roll-up all the straw mats we use for decoration on the serving hatch, the ones we re-use from their first life where they line the boxes of brie. Put the wicker basket of biscuits to one side, next to the chiller, put the bunting on top, make sure the tins of goose fat aren’t going to roll anywhere and smash something, then close the bottom hatch, flick the hydraulic ramps on the upper part of the hatch and close it, making sure not to get the canopy caught in the doors. Then go back inside the trailer and make sure, make absolutely sure the hatch latches are closed and locked, both sides. Otherwise the hatch will swing open on a right hand corner and most likely kill someone.

Mop the floor with the boiling water, then once that’s done go and unplug from the mains, roll-up the extension lead, stow that and the electric cable inside the trailer and a last look around to make sure nothing is going to jump off anything and smash itself or smash anything else. We don’t sell olives in the trailer although we do in the shop for a simple reason; our predecessor used to and one day when he was driving back from Hadleigh had a bad feeling he couldn’t put into words.

Like anyone towing he did the sensible thing when that happens, he pulled over and stopped and got out to have a look at the trailer as soon as he could. Nothing wrong outside the trailer so he unlocked and opened the door. To find 6 kilos of olives that used to be in olive oil now happily swimming around the cheese trailer floor. That was a happy evening of cleaning. So we don’t.

One last look around in the dusk, no lights now the power’s off, wind the jockey wheel up and pull the trailer round so I can hook it up to the 4×4. Spin the trailer round and remember I’ve forgotten something. Back up to the trailer, drop the socket over the hook, clip the chain onto the mounting just in case, put the electric plug in to give the trailer some lights, make sure the breakaway cable that will put the brakes on if the trailer jumps off the towbar is clipped on properly. Then wind up the jockey wheel and kick the handle to make sure it doesn’t drop and bend the thing, which happens about twice a year at £40 a time.

Walk around the trailer before we go, just to make sure everything’s ok. The lights are on, the hatch is secure and there it is. The door’s still open. Shut the door slowly in this early part of the night. Quietly set the padlock, get back in the truck and drive slowly up the lane to where the trailer lives down the lane. When we get there, over the little bridge, past the llamas’ field that’s going to be flooded if there’s much more rain, round the corner and past the empty pub it’s properly night time. Go home. Go safely. Go quietly.