Memory Bags

John Julian

Photograph by John Chase

"Our stall has been here for approximately 70 to 100 years. My great grandfather had it, then me grandfather, then me father and then me. So we’ve always sold fruit. And until 1947, so just before the war, about ’45, they wasn’t licensed, the pitches, it was like, first here, first served. And there used to be lots of rucks over the pitches. And basically, cos my grandfather was the best fighter, he got the best stall, like the top stock and that. And then when people used to be in his pitch when he came to work, if someone was there he would tell them to move, and if they didn’t move he’d fight them until they did. And they used to have bare knuckle fights on the cobbles cos this used to be all cobbles here and this was all like fighting on the cobble stones, and that was how it was."

John Julian, born in 1948