As we all sit down with loved ones, or feel the loss of family members this Christmas, we’ll likely all be thinking of fond childhood memories.
Christmas Day is for spending the afternoon chatting with your nan and grandad about the great times you’ve spent together. And for many, those stories will include Liverpool’s iconic Greatie Market.
For over 180 years, locals have made a weekly pilgrimage to Great Homer Street Market. This week I spent some time chatting to people about their distinct childhood memories of the sights and smells of 'Greatie'.
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Jessie remembers her Nan, Beryl taking her “every week without fail, we’d jump a black cab from Stanley Road and back, even though she was skint. She’d be looking at all the shoes, tied together with lazzy bands and then go to scope out big knickers. Because it was the only place that ever sold her size.
“Then we’d head inside to the café. I’d sit there having chips and gravy while she smoked her brains out. And if we didn’t eat the bread and butter, she’d rip it up so they couldn’t use it for other customers. She’d paid for it, she always said. We used to come home with gigantic egg custards and bags of broken biscuits.”
Ruby Thompson adds: “I always used to go with my nan, and my aunty and uncle have a stall there. During lockdown they started doing weekly live videos from there and people started watching them from all around the world. They now often have people coming to visit them at Greatie just because of their lockdown videos online.
Lydia remembers her nan “buying us those ciggies you fill with talc, and us going home to smoke together.” Julie adds: “I remember going there in the 70s with my grandad. I got a photo with a monkey in a jumper!”
Laura says: “My first memory is being there in a pram with my great auntie. Sadly she died only age 23.” Rachel remembers “rifling through to find the matching shoe and eating a jacket spud at like 9am.”
Nat remembers the smalls from the stalls “fish, leather and crusty cobs… magical. And the shoe stall. A humongous pile of odd shoes!!” Sophie recalls “having to find the other shoe to the one I wanted. There was a table full of shoes, but non in pairs.”
Maria says: “Oh god the memories... in the 90s it was all about the Bon-Bleu shop at the back for trackkies. They have stalls known for shoes and underwear from M&S but I think they got in trouble with trading standards so all signs were changed to 'you know who'. Once, when I was looking through a table top of knickers with my mum, the fella on the stall said 'ay have you seen these American ones? One yank and they're off' funny but so embarrassing!!
“I also used to go in the afternoon with my mate, when all the stalls were gone. We’d collect all the discarded flowers and make bunches for our mums, it was like a treasure hunt”
Greatie Market still runs every Saturday from 8am, so you can still visit, and re-live or make new memories with your family.
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