My son has become a Covid tester. It’s a world of anxiety, overtime – and Fray Bentos pies

When you have a baby in the UK you get a “red book” personal health record, charting your new arrival’s progress from angry naked mole rat to alarmingly mobile destroyer of worlds. There are pages for developmental milestones: first smile, crawling, babbling. My sons’ grimy versions were mainly used as coasters: I fixated more on milestones such as “first day without inconsolable crying” (me). Eventually consigned to a drawer, they are only unearthed to check vaccination records. Now, though, the boys are 18 and 16, disappearing from me as fast as the pandemic will allow, and I find myself noting milestones, finally.

My elder son, taking a break before university, at last has a job: he’s working as a Covid tester, 2020’s only growth area. It’s a strange new world for him, of hi-vis workwear, daily interactions with the anxious, stroppy public and 5.45am starts. It has brought its own set of firsts. This month alone he has been introduced to both “overtime” (good) and “deduction of tax at source” (a cruel blow). We even recently shared a bonding moment on “Baby’s first HMRC helpline call” as he tried to get a national insurance number. There’s no red book page for this, sadly.

The most alarming discoveries for him have come via his co-workers. He came home after a 13-hour shift recently looking deeply perturbed. “A man told me he eats pickled eggs,” he said, looking to me for reassurance. “He said he puts them in bags of crisps and rolls them around ‘for flavour’.” Raised mainly in Belgium, he has been sheltered from some of the more, er, unexpected elements of British cuisine. “I am afraid that pickled eggs are indeed a Thing,” I told him, sombrely.

“He also said you can get a pie in a tin, but that must be a wind-up,” he continued. Perhaps it’s time for the ultimate milestone: first Fray Bentos. You can get a vegan version now, apparently.