Bedders is a precinct fish and chip shop beside a busy traffic island in Small Heath in Birmingham. It is not quite in Jess Phillips’s constituency, but she hopes she might claim it in the next round of boundary changes. Sitting in its back room, with a plate of cod, chips and mushy peas and a cup of builder’s tea in front of her, the MP is explaining to me why she feels she has a family stake in the place.
“My nan and grandad lived round the corner,” she says. “And we would always come here when I was growing up. After my nan died at 92 in 2005, Grandad Fred – her second husband – would come and do his shopping at Asda over the road and then in here for his dinner. They would look after him. He’d been wounded in Burma during the war, but was fit as anything – in his 80s, he’d be up a ladder, always in his suit and tie, clearing his gutters. One time though, crossing the road to here, he was knocked down by a car and shattered his pelvis. After that, one particular woman, Janet, who used to work here, if she hadn’t seen him for a few days would take a bag of chips round to his house and check he was all right. When he died, he had a little bit of money left in his savings and he left a third of it to Bedders fish and chip shop and to Janet.”
