How to tell a stall story

IT is 40 years this month since York's market left Parliament Street and pitched up in Newgate. The switch was controversial then, as Parliament Street had been the market's home for 127 years. And it remains controversial today, with most stallholders still lobbying for a return to the more visible position on a pedestrianised Parliament Street.

York always was a market town and the stalls once dominated the city centre, as the selection of pictures above from the reference library archives recall.

So the decision to shift it east in the Sixties was a sign of the changing times, and a hugely contentious one.

To commemorate the ruby anniversary many York traders were setting up stall again in Parliament Street, for Newgate Awareness Days today and tomorrow.

Official celebrations and a fun day are planned for summer.

Some of those manning stalls in Newgate today can remember the glory days of the Parliament Street market. Among them is Eric Pennington. "I am 80," he said. "I started working in York market when I was eight."

His grandma used to sell fruit and vegetables from her front room in Trinity Lane. Her suppliers ran a stall in York market and they offered it to Eric's dad John when he came out of the war in 1918.

"My mum used to help in the market as well," said Eric. "When I was a baby she used to put me in a 14lb banana box under the stall. There was all straw in the bottom of it."

So almost from the day he was born, he was on the market. As he grew older he would help out, starting at seven in the morning unwrapping the tomatoes.

"I used to wait for the sun to come over Marks & Spencer to warm my hands."

The range of produce was very different then. "You would be waiting for the seasons to start: celery season, tomato season. Now you get it all year round."

Eric saw action in the Second World War as a ship's gunner in Burma, Malaya and the Middle East, before returning to the market.

He remembers the move to Newgate vividly. "It was a load of con. They wanted the market moved out of Parliament Street into here.

"So they thought, get the environmental people on it. They said, it's unhygienic to sell food on Parliament Street. But it weren't unhygienic to sell it here."

Eric's grandson, Simon Baynes, is carrying on the family tradition by running the Baynes fruit and veg stall in York market.

He said: "There's been a resurgence in the markets. They're all coming back, local people, because they realise the market's better for York people. The market's regenerating, especially with the new flats and houses in town."

Another of the longest-serving market men is Malcolm Chapman. Now 72, his first taste of the life was as a boy when he'd earn "two bob or a shilling" for helping out various traders until nine o'clock at night. A year after he left school he was back full time, a 15-year-old lad working for Billy Hodgson's fruit, veg and flowers stall on £2 a week. The working day began at 6am when he'd load up the cart with produce from Billy's premises on Church Street.

He'd take it to two stalls on Parliament Street, near where Lunn Poly is today. Nearby was the Clock Inn, a favourite of traders. The market covered Parliament Street, from Pavement right up to St Sampson's Square: it was like a town within the city.

"There were quite a few characters like Sid Rhodes, Eric Apedale and Ned Boyne. Behind us was the farm market, selling eggs and live chickens."

It was hard work, often in the bitter cold, but he took to the market life. "I had the gift of the gab.

"When I started working with Bill Hodgson, he got there about nine. I was there at six in the morning. I used to start yapping then and I'd still be yapping at five o'clock at night."

After 14 years with Bill, he struck out alone. He ran his stall with wife Ellen, and twin daughters Lynne and Lorraine joined the family business as soon as they were out of school. It is going strong today. Malcolm recalls fondly the social life in the old days, with plenty of pub sessions, and Christmas parties at the racecourse. That has fizzled out, he said. The whole market has changed.

"It's a different world. You got more people. There were no supermarkets, there were no Tescos. You weren't up against them. They changed it all."

He is pessimistic about the market's future. "It will be gone in ten years," he predicted.

Malcolm worked alongside Wilf Mannion. Wilf's son, John, 57, is the third generation to run the family fruit and veg stall.

"I am the last one left," he said. "I came straight from school in 1962. It was quite different to what it is now. There were more people coming to you. You could bank on local people buying local goods.

"The market was an integral part of York people's shopping. Now you don't cater for local people like you used to."

He remembers when the market shut up shop at one o'clock on half-day closing Wednesdays.

When Parliament Street was in full swing, though, the choice was phenomenal. "There used to be 30 traders on a Saturday selling fruit and veg. In the Fifties and Sixties, come autumn time, you could sell lots of celery.

"On a Saturday you would trim and wash 20 dozen celery. Celery and cheese and a bit of bread and butter was Saturday tea.

"Grapes used to come in barrels packed in cork. They were so crisp, they really were nice."

The market gardeners who took stalls were characters, he recalled. "They would sell all they had and go in the pub. Nobody bothered about drink-driving then. If a copper saw you struggling to get into your van after a drink, he would help you in."

The decision to take the market out of Parliament Street was not popular, even though some stalls were already in Newgate by 1962. "If the truth was addressed York market should be out in that main street," John said.

In the Forties, a seven-year-old George Walker stood outside a much smaller Marks & Spencer selling live pigeons "for one and a tanner. Hotels would buy them because they were a delicacy during wartime". Now 67, he recalled how a few years later he would load up the pony and flat cart at his family's fruit and seed merchants in Tollerton and drive the ten miles to York to sell on the market.

The stall was on the second row back outside the Clock pub, and they would stay selling in all weathers. "We had four seasons in those days, not like it is now."

After leaving the market trade, he joined the Army and also worked as a welder and blacksmith engineer before returning to his first business in the Seventies. Now semi-retired he works on the Sheila And David stall.

He is still miffed about the move to Newgate. "Parliament Street was the place for the market. There's that charter that says it belongs to York farmer-traders. I think they ought to have left it like that."

Bhanvra came to Britain from the Punjab in India in 1952. His friends here were in the market business, and soon so was he, selling stockings on Parliament Street.

"The atmosphere was very, very good," he said. "It was busy. Everybody was cheerful and happy.

"In the beginning you had casual stalls and moved around. You were waiting a long time to get a regular one."

These days there are always empty stalls and business isn't so brisk. "Tell the council to move it into Parliament Street. Then the market will survive," Bhanvra said.

Arthur Rhodes' first experience on the market was in 1959 as a ten-year-old, helping out Mike Connolly who ran Supersave on Fossgate and a stall on the market. It sold all sorts including soap powders and "One Up Wonder Cleaner" for half a crown.

In 1967, Arthur took his own stall in Newgate. Later he went into the haulage business before he returned to the market where his wife and his brother were busy trading.

Among the characters he remembers from the early days are Cut-Nose Bill, aka Billy Griff, selling cutlery from Sheffield; and Gordon Boswell, the leather bag king.

"The sooner the market returns to Parliament Street the better," Arthur said. "The people of York want it, the traders want it, everybody wants it."

Updated: 10:06 Tuesday, April 27, 2004