Mansfield Market

I have some lovely memories of Mansfield market place. My dad, George Fisher, my mum, Margaret, and my lovely Uncle Johnny stood the market for many years. My grandad started the business many years before selling fruit & veg. I spotted the picture of Mansfield and was amazed to see the photo of my grandad next to his wagon. If you look carefully you can see the name Fisher on the side of the wagon. I was about 12 when I used to stand the market, we now sold tinned food,such as Chatka crab, salmon, tuna, tarentella tomatoes and good old-fashioned Camp Coffee. We had queues all day long and this learned me from a very young age to add up! The winters seemed to be a lot colder then, I can remember my dad having to put ta arpaulin from the stall to his van to protect customers from the heavy snow. Many a time did we have to take a different route home to Nottingham because the roads were blocked by 6 foot drifts! My Uncle Johnny used to send me to Woolworths in my dinner hour for a warm. We had our stall right next to the town hall which had a really old merry go round behind it, when I was smaller I spent most of the day on there! Next to us was the pea stall which had lovely hot peas with mint sauce, that's if you could get served because they were always busy too. The people of Mansfield were great, always up for a bit of banter,miners in particular throwing over a carrier bag and saying "Put me somet good in there for me snap". Unfortunately the miners' strike in the 1980s finished the business off, nobody had much money to spend and sadly the market declined. I think this was what caused my lovely uncle to pass away in 1982. He was buried in Nottingham and a lot of Mansfield traders attended the funeral, a couple of them commented that he had the best pitch at Mansfield and even ended up in the best pitch at the cemetary. Right next to the church! I have visited Mansfield a few times since, it's changed a little but it will always be a special place for me. Happy times.