"She never had a funeral": the stallholder giving Charlotte Street Market a lasting memorial
He has devoted the last five years to recording the histories of the market
A stallholder at Portsmouth’s much-beloved Charlotte Street Market has dedicated the last five years of his life to recording memories of life on the stalls, before they are lost for good.
Gary Litchfield would not be here if it wasn’t for Charlotte Street and has launched a new book capturing the loved and lost fixture of the city’s life.
His parents, both children of stall holders, met at the market, he explained likening Charlotte Street to ‘my kind of my auntie’.
He said: “My mum worked for her parents at one end of the street and my dad for his parents at the other, but being two young people working down there, the eyes catch each other.
His parents may have closed up shop in the early 2000s, but Mr Litchfield said the market runs through his blood. He grew up among the stalls, working for his grandfather as a young boy, before inheriting the family business and tending the stall until its last breath.
He said: “Ever since I went down as a boy, I've been really passionate about it and that passion has never, ever died.
“My grandad, Burt, had carte blanche and could sell what he wanted. One week he’d sell daffodil bulbs and the next he would sell salad, it was anything that the wholesaler's really.
“I started working down there when I was about 13. As kids, we were drawn to it. It was a friendly environment. Everyone was friendly to you. There was no hostility, but it was so busy. You just couldn't move. It was so loud, people shouting out, selling their goods, people chatting and all that.
“If you could have bottled an atmosphere. It'd be worth fortunes. As a kid, it was just, it was just a new world to me.”
Portsmouth has had a market since King Richard the Lionheart granted it a royal charter in 1194, but the city’s traders set up in Charlotte Street around the 1940s.
“It was after the war, a lot of people came home and they had nothing to do, so people said, ‘Oh, get a stall in the market’,” Mr Litchfield said.
“So the stalls were scattered all around Commercial Road, by the Unicorn Gate and the dockyard. Eventually the council decided to put everyone in on place, on Charlotte Street, for a three day market, Thursday to Saturday.”
In the first days of the market, stalls sold household goods like pots and pans, as fresh produce was still rationed and hard to come by. But, as the years progressed, greengrocers, butchers and fishmongers all set up on Charlotte Street.
Mr Litchfield remembers the variety of characters of the market fondly. “My grandad Arthur was very dogmatic,” he said.
“He was so busy that he never had time for small talk. It wasn’t rude, he was just so busy. It would be ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, but there was no time for small talk because you only had three days to sell all your goods.
“Some people were funny, some were very dry and had a great sense of humour. Even when people knew they were going to lose money that day because it was raining and they couldn’t sell their fresh produce, they wouldn’t rant and rave. They’d make fun of it.
“Everyone I’ve spoken to just said the lessons they’ve learned from the market, about stress, and looking at the bright side of things. The attitude of ‘I’ve lost money today, but I’ll make it back next week’ was prevalent and really really infectious.
“Everyone I knew who was part of the market, whether they were a kid or a stall holder, had that resolute attitude. It resonates with you, it sticks with you.”
The heady days of Charlotte Street lasted many decades, long enough for stalls to pass from generation to generation. However, at the start of the 90s, a change could be felt among the stallholders, he explained.
Mr Litchfield said: “When I started in 1972, there were no supermarkets in Portsmouth. There was a Tesco near Charlotte Street, but they only had tins and bottles and things like that, and a very, very small fruit and vegetable section, which was very expensive, so, no one really bothered nobody there.
“Our produce was so much better too. We were going to Southampton Market and the wholesaler upstairs in the Tricorn Centre, upstairs, and it was all just off the boats, absolutely fresh. The supermarket couldn't get anywhere near us.
"I remember it when we were selling cucumbers for 20p back in 1973, and just behind us in Tesco, there were 80p. But slowly, but surely, they started getting level with us price-wise, because they are bigger. And then started beating us, because they would dictate to the farmers and the bodies. I think in probably the late 80s, you could see that level changing, where people were going, ‘your cucumber is 30p, but it's only, say 28p in Tesco. And that's when we said, ‘oh, they're catching up’.”
Many traders blamed the demise of the market on other causes too. Gary said the market is subject to a “post-mortem that's still continuous to this day”.
He said: “I would say, you could see it from the time they started building Cascades. They moved half the market over the road to build the shopping centre.
“Of course, you've got scaffold and dust, noise, and it was like, you know, and that, that's what we always call the first nail in the coffin. Then the tricorn started getting desolate, it was rotten. So we were torn between a rock and a hard place, and kept begging the council to move us somewhere where there's people, which, to be fair, they eventually did.”
The council relocated the market to Commercial Road, which Mr Litchfield said ‘seemed like a good idea at the time’.
“They had hundreds and hundreds of people there, but they weren’t there for the market,” he said. “They were there for Marks & Spencer and the other shops, so although you had the footfall, they weren’t actually looking for potatoes and lettuce and things like that.
Gary stepped away from the family stall for a time as a young man to pursue other things, but the pull of the market never left him.
He said: “I remember when my stepfather got ill and then I was pulled back because I'm the oldest son and was going to have to take over the store. I went down to see him and my mum and asked about quantities of produce, and when they were reading out, I remember looking at them saying, ‘how are you making a living?’
“When I left in 1984, we were selling a palette of tomatoes, which is 140 boxes of tomatoes, and sometimes I have to go and get more. When I spoke to my stepfather, 15 years on, he said ‘we're only selling 15 boxes of tomatoes now.’
“It got to a stage when I took over, there was just no weight left to the demand. And it's very hard. I think it was the year 2000 and I had a young family and I thought, ‘there's no money in this anymore’.
“I was 40 years old at the time, and I thought, ‘I'm going to get out now, because the longer I leave it, the harder it is to get another job’. But it was an absolute shame. It broke my heart. I was just another one, those dominoes.
“When I did make my mind up, it wasn’t overnight. Even though it was a logical thing, I thought, ‘I can't do this, because this was my granddad’s, my mum's’. It's a commitment there. My mum had passed away by then, but I know she would have said to me, ‘Gary, if it ain't working, walk away’. But you've just got that commitment.”
Despite it being 26 years on from giving up his stall, Charlotte Street Market is still at the forefront of Mr Litchfield’s mind. He has spent the last five years recording the histories of the market and its traders and is releasing a book of photos and stories to ensure the memory of Charlotte Street lives on.
He said: “She never had a funeral. I know it sounds a bit silly, but she never had a memorial, you know, just fizzled, just deteriorated.
“People don’t remember her. My grandchildren don’t remember the market. In 20 years time, as we all move on, the memory is going to fade, and that's another reason I want to do it.
“I think if Charlotte Street was a person, and she could talk, she'd say, ‘Please remember me’. So I wrote the book. If she could speak, I think she'd look up and say, ‘Thanks for doing that. Thank you for bringing me back.’”
The launch for the book Charlotte Street Market will take place on October 23 and 24, at the last remaining grocery stall on Commercial Road. Copies will be available to buy at the stall as well as Laurie’s Fruit Store, behind the bar at The Mars Pub, which was frequented by stallholders after a busy market day, and on Amazon.
Gary has also been involved in creating an exhibit at the Portsmouth Museum about the history of Charlotte Street, which will open on October 26.