But most customers liked to stop for a leisurely cuppa and a chat with Frankie. Two regulars, Reg and Terry, painters working on a factory unit in Benfleet, had arrived for their usual full breakfast baps and strong teas. Bacon, sausages and burgers were already sizzling on the hotplate.

Reg dropped his third spoonful of sugar into the steaming mug of tea. 'I dunno how you do this all day, Frankie,' he said, stirring the brown, milky tea vigorously without spilling a drop. 'Don't you ever get bored? You know, stuck all day in a six-by-four tin can with nothing to do but watch the cars go by?'

Frankie cracked an egg onto the hotplate. 'I have plenty to do,' he said, reaching for another egg. 'This stuff doesn't cook itself. And I read the papers and listen to the radio. You get to learn a lot doing a job like this.'

Terry slurped tea from his mug. 'Yeah, fair enough, but – and don't get me wrong 'cos I love your cooking – but the smell of fried food all day would drive me round the bend. It clings to you, don't it?'

Frankie cracked the second egg onto the hotplate. 'You mean like the way the smell of paint clings to you?'

Reg laughed, and pulled a copy of the Sun from a deep pocket in his overalls. 'He's got a point there, Terry, a very good point. He stinks of fry-ups, we stink of top coat.'

He turned to page three and studied the photograph for a few moments. 'No, I could handle the smell, no problem. What would get me would be being stuck in this little van for hour after hour. Be like being in a prison cell.'

The eggs were almost cooked and Frankie turned away to spread butter on the baps. This, a prison cell? They had no idea. A prison cell was a dark, window-less concrete cube, three paces long by five wide and crammed with twelve other prisoners. The burger bar was heaven compared to all that. You could open the door and step outside. You could look out and see the road and the grass verge and the houses in the distance. You could listen to the radio. And you could talk to people.