Pete The Market Trader

Cousin Darren

June 9, 2017

Cousin Darren turned it in this week and I have to say that I am genuinely gutted for the guy.

Back in the day he was a big time Charlie in the market game with a whole run of busy markets. He was no stranger to taking as much as ‘a piano’ a day.

However, the world is a different place now and it’s getting tougher and tougher to get by.

Last Wednesday the engine went on Darren’s van. He’s was looking at a three grand repair bill to get it back on the road. He said to me:

“I’ve had enough Peter. I’m tired of the uncertainty. I want to know that there is money going into my bank on a certain day. If the van breaks down I want to be able to phone someone and tell them ‘the vans broken down’ and it not be my problem”.

He’s done twenty years in the market game and now he’s got a job delivering groceries for a super market.

I can’t imagine what it would be like being told what to do from someone else when you’ve been running your own show for so long. I wish him the best of luck.

On the plus side of things his Saturday was better than mine so I’ve nicked that. Every cloud Eh.

That’s this week’s report from Pete the Market Trader. The man on the street. Literally.

Pete The Market Trader

On the Cards

June 7, 2017

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Last week Ron and Maggie on the card stall turned it in, they are well-passed retirement age and there was no way that that van was ever going to get through the MOT but they will be missed.

They left a load of boxes of old cards behind and when at the end of the day I saw Laurence the towels picking them up and putting them on his van I thought ‘What does he want with a load of old greeting cards that didn’t sell?’

It was three days later when I was talking to Ken the socks that I found out why he wanted them.

He had taken the boxes of cards down to Charlton Street and when Ken wasn’t looking he had individually hidden the cards throughout all of Ken’s stock, it’s going to take him weeks to find them all.

This week Laurence got a note through from the post office.
Someone had sent him a letter but hadn’t put a stamp on it so he had to go down and collect it.

Laurence drove down to the town centre, paid to park and walked to the reclamation part of the post office where an employee showed him an envelope with his name and address on it and told him that he had to decide on whether or not to pay the two pound that it costs to claim it.

He said to the guy behind the window “I’m curious, let me have it”.

He opened the envelope to find a familiar card inside. It was from Ken. I won’t tell you what was written in it but suffice to say it was a one-word message beginning with a W.

Laurence was not amused. We all thought it was hilarious.

That’s this week’s report from Pete the Market Trader. The man on the street. Literally

Pete The Market Trader

The Spring Madness Continues

June 7, 2017

This week’s smartest punter award goes to the lady buying perfumes from ‘Holistic Stan’.

Now as market traders we have a thing about discount. I know that you all think that you are expected to ask for discount because you are on a market but you are not in Marrakesh now. If something is up for a pound just pay the pound and be happy and three items does not constitute a bulk buy. Having said that if you are spending good money feel free to kick us.

Stan’s customer spent good money. She spent ninety-seven quid and Stan said:

“Darling, if you spend over a hundred pound you get ten percent off”.

“I’ve got all I need!” replied the lady, indignant at his attempt to sell her more perfume.

“But Darling” said Stan “If you buy one more it works out cheaper”.

“I don’t want to spend the extra three pound” she said and walked off.

You can’t help some people.

That’s this week’s report from Pete the Market Trader. The man in the street. Literally.

Pete The Market Trader

I don’t think they’re Jeckle’s

June 6, 2017

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Been a better week on the stall this week. Worried Michael turned up with a cotchel of kid’s designer polo shirts. I say designer, it has a logo that is two men on two separate horses playing polo and the word Ralph is nowhere to be seen.

I think that they are kosher and they should be okay with Trading Standards. They remind me a bit of the football shirts that we sold during the world cup that had ‘two lions on a shirt’ and they were okay with them.

That was around the time that we sold the kids tee shirts that had the names of all of top clubs emblazoned over a football with world cup written on it. We had them all: Manchester; Liverpool; Chelsea; Newcastle. It wasn’t until after I had taken delivery of ten boxes of the shirts that Little Laurence pointed out that Manchester and Liverpool didn’t actually play in the world cup.

What do I know about football, from the age of eleven I spent all my Saturday’s working on a record stall in Milton Keynes selling ‘Geoff Love’s Banjo Party’.

As fate would have it the T’s turned out to be a rocket of a line and I went back for another batch.

That’s this week’s report from Pete the Market Trader. The man on the street. Literally.

Pete The Market Trader

Red Nose Day

June 6, 2017

It was Red Nose Day this week and as a result all of the kids red sweat shirts I have been selling for the last two months have just walked out of the door. In certain schools the kids go in dressed head to toe in red. I approve of this silliness, although I have to say that I couldn’t help anyone out with requests for red trousers, it’s a market stall not a circus supplier.

I will be making a donation, not because I sold a load of sweat shirts but because it is a good cause and I always give. If you haven’t, you should. There, you’ve been told.

The one thing that I don’t understand is why the mums wait until the very last minute to buy when they’ve known for weeks that it’s coming up and then look at you like it’s your fault that you’ve no longer got the size they want.

It’s like when they are queueing to pay, looking at you as if to say ‘hurry it up’ and then, when they get to the front of the queue, they start looking through their handbag which is the size of a small moon for their purse.

Then, once they have paid, they ask the immortal question:

“What size did I just buy?”.

That’s this week’s report from Pete the Market Trader. The man on the street. Literally.

Pete The Market Trader