Ashton Market gives up its past …….

 It will be sometime after 1978, and I was back in Ashton wandering the market and snapping away with my new camera.

Now I know it was 1978 because that was when I bought the new camera and this was the first visit back after I had left for south Manchester two years earlier.

Of course it might have been a tad later, and there will be someone who can pinpoint exactly when by the stage of the building development which appears in some of the pictures.

I won’t be the only one who has a fascination for markets …. And not the twee ones that pop up every month in the well-heeled suburbs, where you can buy “interesting hand-crafted gin”, perfume using natural herbs and fragrances, and outrageously priced cakes, sausage rolls and speciality bread.

Nope, I mean the old fashioned, happy with no frills markets, dealing in everything from household products, shoes, dresses, and kid’s toys.

Along with heaps of fruit, veg and all sorts for the fridge and larder.

When we lived in Ashton, off Penny Meadow it was just part of what we did on a Saturday, followed by a trawl of the indoor market buying the cheese, fancy cakes and much much more.

And of course, the market was the place for those three screws and a wing nut which now come in packs of twenty at eye watering prices.

A few years earlier we had lived opposite Grey Mare Lane Market and it too provided everything we needed and while almost everything we bought there has gone I do still have a series of LPs which are still in the collection.

Nor have I exhausted my market memories, because growing up in Eltham there was the market in Woolwich, where stalls spilled out onto the highway forcing buses to creep gingerly along between tables piled high with underwear, heaps of different fish and shell fish and of course cheap versions of all sorts of stuff.

But while I did take a few of Woolwich, most were taken wandering the stalls in Ashton in the late 70s, early 80s and again at the turn of the century.

And that is about it other than to remember the vibrancy, fun and characters you encountered from the stall holders shouting out their wares to the customers.

Now there are fewer of those traditional markets and the stalls you can find in them have shrunk to a sad few.

Still, I have the memories.

Location; the open air market in Ashton Under Lyne, 

Pictures; busy day at the market, circa 1978, early 1980s from the collection of Andrew Simpson