The Open Markets Of London

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 81, 5 April 1941, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Open Markets Of London

F there is a name known to practically all of the English-speaking world it is that of Petticoat Lane. Yet, if you looked for it on a map of London you would not find it. As a malter of fact there is' no such place, for its official name is Middlesex Street. On week days it is just a commonplace, drab thoroughfare, but on Sundays all is different It .s then that it puts on Us alias. Petticoat Lane, and becomes one of the most colourful and picturesque places in London. Naturally, since the war, the open markets have been almost entirely suspended, but we shall in this short article treat of them as they were in their picturesque days of peace. When tlie ritv is wrapped in — . a Sabbath quiet". Petticoat Lamis just at its peak point of business. It is not a wide street, tint both korlw are lined with iHioths. and tho shop-. too, arc all open. Dense streams, of people jio milling np and down —people -eeiningly Slathered from every nation under heaven. The wares exposed for saie are as varied as the folk who sell them. There are fur-. shoes, fruit, sweetmeats, toy-. cakes. pastry. Dutch eel-, hardware. pottery, clothing. second - haiid furniture —in fart, everything you could possibly think of. Here and there can lie seen antiques and odd lots of old silver, finite possibly stolen •roods, and jewellery which liaspent long years .in and out of a pawnbroker's. Indian vendorwalk up and down, their stock-in-trade —gaily coloured silk shawls, printed -lulls and rainbow scarves —-Inn-; oxer their shoulders. Occasionally the C,rongs ale -o great in Petticoat I.ane that the booths an*' harrows are overturned by the crn-li. The vendors, many of whom have inherited their stand- from their fathers, cry their wares in all sorts of accent", preponderantly -Fewi-h. For more tiulv C'ocknev speech you mu-1 go to one of the other imivkets. for in-lance. Billingsgate. which has been famed for bad language tor -o long that jieople ha\c never noticed that the "celebrated linj>o has long -in<-6 di-appea red. Perhaps it could not stand the salutary Jierfectioii, the toriential^#-v*abbinps which keep the plan 1 as tidy as a new pin. Us peculiar name is rather a mystery. supposed to lie derived from a certain JJelin. a mythical king of the Britons about too B.C. It is almost sure that it. was one of the two gates in the river wall of t'le old Roman city of London. It has been a quay from the earlie-i times, for in the laws of King Ethelred. 97!'. provision was made for the payment of tolls and customs by the vessels arriving there. It was then primarily a corn market. lie fore the War, tin- \i-itor to Billingsgate could see a curious link with the l-otidon of centuries ago—a Dutch eel boat, one or another of which lias liecu moored at Billing-gate landing stage since the time of Charles I. -A snub-nosed, fat-prowed little ve— el, with its gunwale curved backward, its hull painted green or blue or white. and with a -ingle sturdy ma-t. the -chu\t I pronounced -cout ) mn-t lie moored there to luaiuiain the charter lights of the Dutch eel ti-hers to sell their catch in l.ondoii. Ihe eel boat i- a symbol and a link with the past. It link- ii- with the old Billingsgate, when it wa- made a free market for the -ah' of all kind- of ti-h. That was in ItiftO. It take- us hack to the time wlu-u it wa- ordered that salt, oranges. onions and other tou-ign produce should lie landed at Billing-gate.

lid even further when every cre.it hip anchored there paid twojvtr-.->.r "«talida;:c" and every hip with "ore lock*" .1 ]>cnn\ Of cour-e. there ;ir«* i.ilk-i faiuou* narket Caledonian, which eovcii!k)iu acre-. ami »a« «»j»«-ii>-<1 i'_v [lie Prince t on-ort in 1 '"vein liaplcn which alir.ii; year- old: 1<l«-nli;< li. «lil' 1 iva- bou-jht liy l>iik Whiti in.l which later develop.-d in 1• • 1 2UMt meat market. The "»pain-!i Anilia—.ador in I'iiiJ said lli.i' there \va- probably more nie.«t -old there than in the whole of Spain. Beside- tin- ilieie have l.e-n »ome lii-torie -tallholdci- who iiehl aloof from the common •narket: for in-tancc. The 1" • oh! ladies who almo-t up '• the liegimilj:! of t'ie ia-t w.ir kept a milk -1 .111 in Si. .lame-' l'ark There i- 110 1 «-«-■ •: <1 ahow Ion:: the stall hail been there. hut the holder- W-hcw.l I hat their family had Im-i-ii the privilege oj the liv I'harle- 11. lireaii-c tliey had •jiven a -jla-- of milk to H1 - father when he »«• lieivj inarched aire— the l'ark to 11evecutiou out-ide Whitehall. ' Old jieople can Mill reiiioiii'i r the two cow - the old ladic- kept to milk. W lien the new Mail wa- huilr. they all ni-jht on their Iki\c-. with their in* lie-idc them, while the old tail iny. to which it had I •ecu 1 ctliered. and the friciidlv 1I«-* which had -haded them w.ie 1111 1 jilit down. All laindon v.a--tirred. and the Office of \\'<nk. in the < nd wa- forced to «rant them a -tall el-cwhcic for the re-t of their live-! Thru there wa- the Old Ladv ot (baring ( ro>«. who -at 011 a kitchen chair for half a century. filing paper-. \\ hen there »as anything to lie -ecu she stood 011 lier clinir ami had a I view. She had seen Wellington and tieneral Gordon pa-s. and no «me ki.j.vs liow main other cclcbrities. l>ld Jieoplc can remember feeing her when she wa- regarded somewhat as the Ancient spirit of London. holding a review in Trafalgar Square, with all the notable* of the world filing pa-t. C'ovcnt Garden market, one of the most famou- of all. sprang into existence ijtsite c:i-ually. \ endors ol fruit, flower* ami vegetables little by little took up their stands in the fashionable" square, t'rockerv. talking parrots, herb- and other oddtnciit- became mingled with lite garden produce. in time the market grew into a recognised in-ti-tulion with regulation* governing it. The market comes to iife between three and four o'clock in the morning, and the bustle increases to its height about s ~ni. After thnt, the tide of kaleidoscopic lite srradttTtlly subside*. Here you will see in all tlicir picturesque diversity, market fruit men lia nt > anil with their barrows drawn bv lioi>cs or donkey.-, and Hower women wearing those extraordinarv liat* 11 nd bonnets to Ik- lotind nowhere but in London's Kast End. Here and there goe«. a porter with an amazing erection of ten c)r twelve basket s 'in hi- head. Once a bet wa- laid that. dim. a well known identitv of ( oven; Garden, could not carry twenty ba-kels on his Ucad llirougii London. He won hi- wager.