Sneinton fruit market


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When I first started work I was apprenticed to a small garage at the bottom of Sneinton road and a lot of our customers were from the fruit market, I can remember some of the company names but feel free to add to them, Jackson and Lakin fruit and veg, JG Dring potatoes, Mc Fisheries (obvious) mind gone blank now is there any of them still in business?

Rog

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Dunno about the fruit and veg Rog, but it was great going in the 'Pretty Windows' after a breakfast at "Audreys" 'greasy spoon' on Broad street after a night out . It had that market licence and opened at 5.00am (Correct me if I'm wrong)

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I do remember it well, The fox and grapes mentioned in an earlier post about the murder that took place there in the early 60s, Sometimes went in with other apprentice for a pint early on (when I used to drink) only once a week though, my wage of £3.1s.4d didn't go very far,(1969)

Another market company that's just come to mind was Maconachie (sp) another fish monger

Rog

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My great uncle Joe Hollingsworth ran a fish wholesale company operating out of Sneinton market up until the 60's until he had to give up through ill health, I presume he operated under his own name. I gather that my mother was never short of fish during the war. A cheery 'sole' with a red face, he lived on Middledale Road in Carlton, we used to travel over there on the bus to see them every thursday, unfortunately most of my memories of him were when he was ill, sitting in an armchair wrapped in a blanket.

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If there were a lot of fish mongers in those days Rog, was there one in there called Ted Wraggs? I worked for TW Seafoods for a while, they were a spin off !!

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Ted Wragg had a stall in Central Market as well, it was next to the corner door leading on to Huntingdon Street, a couple of plates of whelks were a must from there on a saturday morning. He always had on a blue and white striped apron over a white coat and wore a blue trilby hat. The old man would buy some cod of him which we'd have for dinner, sorry, lunch, dipped in flour and fried, mysteriously, the chips were bought seperately from Cockington Road chip shop.

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I knew about him beeing in the market (As I was working for the splinter group so to speak) I didn't realise there were fishmongers in the old wholesale market

Another fishmonger in the Vic market was Eric Dickersons (Or Dickinsons) I used to do a lot fishing at the time and was catching and releasing loads of Pike out of a mates private water (Three or four 6+ pounders a session) my mate wanted rid of them as they were eating his carp. Dicko agreed to sell it for me going half and half with the money.

Guess what ?? I haven't caught another Pike to this day!!!............LOL

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I knew about him beeing in the market (As I was working for the splinter group so to speak) I didn't realise there were fishmongers in the old wholesale market

If you walked down through the old market, you got all the usual stuff at the top end, then you walked through a pair of double doors and the fish market was at the bottom end, alongside Huntingdon Street:-

centralmarket.jpg

I found this on Picture the Past, it brings back memories, especially all those little dishes of seafood, whelks, cockles, yummy, and the place had a fantastic smell, when I was little I used to get upset by the sight of the rabbits hanging up in there, until they dissapeared during the Mixy outbreak in the late 50's. Sometimes the old man would buy one for tea and I'd have to suffer the sight of it being skinned in front of me. Dad also used to buy a great big pile of fresh mussels, wrapped up in newspaper which we used to have for sunday tea, he used to insist on leaving them overnight in a bucket of freshwater so they'd filter out all the sewage, he reckoned!!

Next time you're in Cornwall, go right down the beach at Polzeath to the rocks on the left hand side, the mussels you can pick there are awsome.

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Post number 10,000 sad b45t4rd or what???

I too used to love that smell from the fish market, I have to walk through our fish department in Morrisons every week but it's not the same. If I'm in Nott'm Vic centre I try to divert through there still (Not been in for about 10 years now)

As for the mussels I'm afraid it would work the other way round , the mussels would continue to filter the sh1t out of the water, till they died for lack of salination.

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In the 80s I would shop in the meat market Vic Centre. All the butchers were doing a roaring trade.

Last time i Went through most of the meat stalls were empty?

Have people stopped eating fresh meat?

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More likely it's because it's cheaper at your local Supermarket (Unless you know the butcher)

My mate Harry runs a butchers in the town centre, it's not like the real butchers from the olden days where the meat was all carved in front of you (And the sawdust on the floor to soak up the blood.) It's more like Pork Farms shops were , meat already sliced and diced and just waiting to be sold. Any way he tells me that there are times when he can't buy meat in for the price they are selling it in Asda and Morrisons, he's even been in there and bought their large pork joints when it was on a silly special offer price , taken it back to his shop, carved it in half and resold for twice the price .Fair play to him.( I've got to say that as he gets me a whole Fillet Steak for about £25 every now and then!!!)

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More likely it's because it's cheaper at your local Supermarket (Unless you know the butcher)

I was watching a documentary about supermarkets and meat/poultry.

It was staggering to see the amount of water pumped into the meat to boost the weight. All quite legal they said!!hungry.gif

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It's been going on for years too, when I worked at Pork Farms in the 80's there was a special 'department' that was responsible for all the Roast Beef that went into the shops all over the UK. A 40lb joint would have another 40lb of water pumped into it before cooking, this as you say added weight but it also helped to cook such a large joint thouroughly without burning the outside and leaving it raw in the centre !! It also helped to keep it moist for longer

So their argument was that it helped to keep the price down !!

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  • 3 years later...

we seem to have gone away from Sneinton Fruit Market but to take us back Ray Larving

was one of my husbands friends they used to drink in the Blue Bell there was a large family of larvings

Bill and Mary Haywood at the time kept the pub. Last week in the Evening post was Rays Memoriam it was 27 years since he passed away if I remember he was only in his 50s. At the time I was working in Bulwell people were comming into the shop and telling us about the Furneral I belive they had to stop all the traffic because it was such a large fureral. The hurst was pulled by four black horses.

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  • 3 years later...

My uncle Geoffrey Beaven worked at the Jesse Robinson's fish market back in the 50/60/s with his dad and 2 brothers, Walter and Dennis.........

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# 10 Mick to me.........I can remember those days, the Markets everywhere had dozens of stalls, just look around you now, there are hardly any........Blame the Internet and the TV for telling folk that meat is bad for you, rubbish, if people had been around in the war years, they would have been glad to get a bit of scrag end, meat was a luxury, protein is what we all need.............My hubby and his dad ran a Butcher's shop for years in Cinderhill, the people used to queue down the road waiting to be served and they had a large delivery round as well back in the 40's -80's............We still eat lots of meat and are very healthy in our 70s.......

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When my dad had his chip pie in the 50's, we always got our fish from Jesse Robinson's .

Odd times when they couldn't deliver, I'd accompany dad in the car to collect it from the market. Great days.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Fond memories of Sneinton markets. We had an allotment up at Hungerhills with two big apple trees and a pear tree. Remember walking back from there to the Meadows with two tea chests on a set of pram wheels. Both tea chests were full of a fruit off the trees. Just me, ten and sister eleven, pushing the barra' home. Chap comes out from one of the stalls and offers to buy them from us. We would have been skinned alive if we had, but we did offer to swap some for some other fruit. Vague recollection we each got a bag of hot chestnuts to scoff on the way home.

  • Upvote 4
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Thanks. Actually not the '60's, would have been early-mid fifties. Probably 1953/54 ish. Those tea chests used to come in handy. Everyone seemed to have a few around for storing stuff in. Besides the two we had for bringing back fruit and vegies from the allotment, we had another slightly mucky one for collecting coke from the gas works.

Once a week in Winter we would push our tea chest/pram wheel barra' across Arky, up Station St and across London Road to collect a tea chest full of coke from the gasworks. Sometimes the coke was still hot from being heated up to release the gas. Remember the gasometer there, suppose that's long gone. The whole gasworks didn't half smell though. When the wind blew in our direction we could smell it at home on Summers St.

There was a glue factory next door to the knackers yard both close to the abattoir down London Road. The gas works was nothing to the smells from there on a warm Summers evening. Funny to think in my time there was cattle market just down from the gasworks with all that that entailed. Cattle probably came in by train. There was spur line that bypassed the Midland Station and swung around behind the gasworks. Might have been the same line that brought coal in from pit for the gasworks.

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