Comments on: A Walk Through Time in Spitalfields Market

By: Melvyn Hyams

Melvyn Hyams — Mon, 11 Aug 2014 19:57:44 +0000

Wow, I’m amazed, just looking round the Internet at the “old East End”, and came upon this site!!
My family were in Spitalfields Market for many years, I too worked there when I left school in 1960. We were at 36, Brushfield Street, next door to the “Blue Cafe”. My Grandfather was nicknamed Doctor Hyams, because he used to “doctor” the samples to make them look good !!!
I have many happy memories from those days, fun with all the porters and drivers, the banter etc. I did my growing up there (very quickly!” The hustle and bustle is something I will never forget.
I seem to recall that there was someone who had a fruit business in Southend (I think) called Vic Chandler, and the Vic Chandler in the TV adverts for the gambling site, looks so much like him, I wondered if it may be his son. Anyone know?

By the way, I knew JJ Lyons as well (as above), and the old Joe Lyons WAS an Ogre, I used to be friends with John his son (always drove a Mercedes even in the sixties !!)

By: Jane Walters

Jane Walters — Sun, 06 Jul 2014 10:24:23 +0000

This took me back decades to my first job in the 60’s in Spitalfields for a company called J.J. Lyons. They held an ‘auction’ of fruit a couple of times a week, and old man Lyons was an OGRE! He looked like Shrek! Very happy memories though of being wheeled back to Liverpool Street station on a wild rainy December night, on a fruit barrow, with plastic bags bulging with oranges and seasonal fruits given to me by barrow boys with flat caps and winking eyes ! Lovely, lovely pictures. Thank you. Jx

By: marie Bow Bells

marie Bow Bells — Fri, 30 May 2014 11:23:13 +0000

As .a child I recall the many mornings my father would leave the house in Stepney at 3am to make his way to Spitafields, returning home at 3pm his sack bag filled with veggies for our daily fare. The war took him into the Navy, but in 45 he was back with his sack The transfer to Leyton left him with a shorter journey, as we had moved to Hackney..At 15 I was on the bus passing Spitafields every day to go to work in the City, its reformation had yet begun…How small the world has become when I can sit here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and get transported back to my childhood, I loved the visual images of past and present, hoping to make the garden tour in 2015 for my 80th BIDay.

By: Geraldine Snape

Geraldine Snape — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 13:15:09 +0000

Another wonderful post….a magic world

By: Anne Forster

Anne Forster — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 17:00:17 +0000

These images are amazing, so ethereal and other worldly.

By: Peter

Peter — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 07:48:33 +0000

Brilliant

By: Keith Edwards

Keith Edwards — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 21:13:27 +0000

I was the porter on verdes 1972-73

By: Elizabeth Varadan

Elizabeth Varadan — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 19:47:23 +0000

These were great. I had a similar experience when I was doing research in my part of Sacramento for a novel set in 1919. I know where buildings used to be that are vanished now, and the effect is a sort of “double vision” when I take my walks.

By: Vivian

Vivian — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 17:07:36 +0000

How lovely to see these photo’s it reminds me of when I walked through the market every day to go to school from my pub in Bishopsgate.

By: Nithin

Nithin — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:07:10 +0000

Just brilliant! And the writing complements the pictures perfectly.