I can only blame myself for my parents’ career as unwitting joke shop owners, as a child I longed for a rubber chicken.
I can only blame myself for my parents’ career as unwitting joke shop owners. As a child, I was preoccupied with Monty Python, and longed for a rubber chicken. I had never seen one in real life, but had a sense that it would bring boundless comedic joy.
At the time, my parents already ran a retail business, and their search for a chicken led them to Ray Peckett, the owner of the UK’s largest joke and costume wholesalers, Smiffys. As family legend has it, Ray would only sell them one if they promised to open a joke shop. So they did.
Three months later, painted a retina-scorching orange, and with an eight-foot, 3D comedy nose and glasses sign on Edinburgh’s Victoria Street, Aha Ha Ha Jokes and Novelties was doing a roaring trade. It is said to have become JK Rowling’s inspiration for Zonko’s joke shop in the Harry Potter series. As a teenager, I spent every weekend and school holiday working there. Manning the till under a mirror ball and a menagerie of inflatable animals, I encountered people from every walk of life. Whoopee cushions, fake turds and things that go bang have egalitarian appeal; even the most prudish lady will titter at a wind-up waddling willy. You are never too old for a blue-mouth sweet. I still remember selling two fake bottoms to a man whose breath was more nose-meltingly potent than any can of fart gas.