Comments on: At David Kira Ltd, Banana Merchants

By: Lynne Perrella

Lynne Perrella — Sat, 31 May 2025 12:51:12 +0000

The power of place. I am imagining how it must have felt to step “back” into the former
office, see the familiar chair, stand in the doorway, etc. The stories you share of these
strong traditions are very moving — and well-timed in this ephemeral/throw-away world.

Thanks, GA. Onward and upward.

By: Cherub

Cherub — Sat, 31 May 2025 12:20:27 +0000

I buy bananas to make a lovely chocolate banana loaf cake with and reading this has taught me things about them I didn’t know.

I also remember bananas in Britain used to come from the Windward Islands then there was a lot of controversy when they started being sourced from Costa Rica instead.

A late aunt of mine in Scotland used to tell me when she was a child in the early 1920s a man went round the village the family lived in with a horse and cart selling fruit, they called him The Banana King man because he always had lots of bananas.

By: CR

CR — Sat, 31 May 2025 10:17:29 +0000

If only it was still a hairdressing salon, now just another offshoot of brick lane ‘vintage’ clothing stores selling mass manufactured low cost unoriginal and uninspiring goods (much like the paste ups and graffiti now on show). With the prices on those items that are mainly taken in cash can’t help thinking of business model akin to the barbershops with no customers or grocery stores laden with perishable goods one next to the other.

By: Bernie

Bernie — Sat, 31 May 2025 09:01:10 +0000

“When I first came to the market as a child of seven, we lived in Stoke Newington and took the 647 trolley bus to Bishopsgate ”

Where in Stoke Newington? It would be a remarkable coincidence but very agreeable if we chanced to dwell in the same street: for me, Bayston Road, a street of houses with nothing special to recommend it other than being where I grew from a baby to a teen-ager.