Pat Moffat remembers the fruit and vegetable market off Edge Lane
Resource Type: Audio | Posted on 12th September 2011 by Liam Physick
Pat Moffat recalls the fruit and vegetable market off Edge Lane, in particular the carts. She also remembers that her mother and grandfather sold flowers
Interviewee: Pat Moffat
Interviewee Gender: Female
Interview Transcript
Jenny: Did Steve work on the railways, then?
Pat: No . . .
Jenny: No?
Pat: . . . no, he worked in the fruit and veg market, he got interviewed here, but then the new fruit and veg market had opened, up, up off Edge Lane . . .
Jenny: Oh, the one . . .
Pat: Yeah . . .
Jenny: . . . that’s still there now.
Pat: . . . yeah, because, everything from here would go down to the Queens Square, where the Gyratory is now . . .
Jenny: Yeah.
Pat: . . . and there’d be men with handcarts and horse-and-carts, that had, had all gather up here, and I think it was half a dollar, which was half a crown . . .
Jenny: Yeah.
Pat: . . . if one of the suppliers wanted something taken into town, because you were going downhill with the handcart and the men would have, like, again, clogs . . .
Jenny: Yeah.
Pat: . . . what, what, Maureen’s . . .
Jenny: Maureen.
Pat: . . . talking about, and, they have a funny front bit on them . . .
Jenny: Yeah.
Pat: . . . so as they could, kind of, stop themselves, if they got a run on (Jenny laughs) with, with the handcart . . .
Jenny: With the handcart?
Pat: . . . yeah . . .
Jenny: That’s . . .
Pat: . . . oh, yeah . . .
Jenny: . . . in the 1970s or . . . ?
Pat: No . . .
Jenny: That . . .
Pat: . . . that’d be the 60s, yeah . . .
Jenny: As you were growing up?
Pat: Yeah, yeah, the . . . cos me mum’s . . . no, my grandad turned his hand to floristry, and they used to sell flowers, me mum’s stand was outside of the Royal Hospital . . .
Jenny: Oh, yeah.
Pat: Yeah.
Jenny: Yeah, so they used to get the flowers . . .
Pat: Flowers, here, yeah.
Jenny: . . . from here.
Pat: Yeah. On many a time, three and four o’clock in the morning, me mum would be there of there if she had a wedding on or something or, or a funeral, to pick the first flowers up.
Jenny: Well, the picture you’ve painted of the area, of flowers and the smells, it’s just . . .
Pat: Yeah, yeah, it was . . .
Jenny: . . . I could sit and listen to this all afternoon!
Categorised under: Shops & Shopping
Comments
I remember the steam wagons (lorries) used to travel along Holt Rd where I lived (late 40’s 50’s)...they used coal and worked out of Edge Hill goods yard..they were very noisy and slow enough for us to skip on and off the back for a ride down Durning Rd.