MY LONDON LIFE: BRIAN, SEAFOOD STALL OWNER, TURNS 80
CELEBRATING THE LIFE OF BRIAN, WALWORTH'S LAST SEAFOOD STREET TRADER
Portrait of a happy man: Brian and his wares.
A few months back I reported on my Saturday morning ritual of shopping for fruit and veg’ at East Street Market in Walworth (the neighbourhood that runs from Elephant & Castle down to the Camberwell/Peckham boundaries). Beyond the excellent value produce available, I enjoy chatting with some of the stall holders, none more so than Brian, who runs the seafood stall.
Not only does Brian offer a great array of salt water delights, he’s also very personable. Having been shopping at East Street since 1994 I’ve encountered all kinds of traders, from the Cockney Wanker (loud, obnoxious, sometimes bigoted; thankfully rarely seen these days) through the gruff (but friendly) type to Kurdish traders who sometimes have their kids with them to help them understand their customers - once they get a hold on market lingo they rapidly adopt the chants, shouts and jokes street traders regularly employ.
Most are men, some have their partners involved – although with the increasing number of Nigerian and Ghanian traders there are more and more women running their own stalls. Brian – and I’ve never noted his surname but it will be on his certificate that he has pinned up at the back of the wagon – has always worked by himself. He only works on Saturdays and has been here for 39 years. And in late October he turned 80. I learnt this as he had a sign out one Saturday saying he would not be trading next Saturday. I asked why and he explained how, as he was turning 80 on that day, his family insisted he take the day off and they take him out.
Fancy a pint of prawns? Or mussels? Or cockles? Or whelks?
Which is a nice thing to do and, as Brian is a nice man, a fitting gesture. The following Saturday he was back at his stall, eighty years and a week old, and happy to be there. We chatted, as we always do, on music – Brian saw The Beatles, Stones and many other now legendary artists back in the 1960s when he was young and regularly going to gigs. He told me he had tickets to see a Mike Oldfield* concert and was looking forward to it – and life.
Brian grew up in south London but, like so many of his generation, long ago resettled in Kent (Rainham: a town I visited on my Kentish record shop trail in January – yes, it has a decent vinyl/shellac emporium). He may have left London but East Street and his stall keeps him returning, week after week, year after year, serving a public who appreciate him offering fresh seafood on a Saturday. Brian is, in this sense, a true public servant - unlike the grifter just re-elected in the USA…
East Street market has certainly changed greatly over recent decades but its good to know the seafood stall, which may have been trading here for more than a century (Brian recalls that the trader he took it over from had run it since at least the ‘50s), keeps the tradition going. In Whitechapel “Tubby Isaacs” seafood stall ran from circa WW1 to 2013, before its last proprietor finally hung up his apron. Today there is no seafood stall in Whitechapel – a plethora of coffee shops and “street food” vendors have replaced the Cockney cuisine in the now chic neighbourhood.
For readers who are unlikely to get to East Street your best bet of sampling what Brian supplies is in British coastal towns, many of which still have a seafood vendor, most now operating not from a stall but out of a hut or food truck: Margate has one perched nearby the Turner Contemporary art museum.
Hogarth’s The Shrimp Girl provided Londoners with fresh street food almost 300 years ago.
Running a seafood stall at a street market is a very London thing to do. Archeologists have found remnants of shellfish consumption when excavating Roman sites, Hogarth sketched and painted The Shrimp Girl in the 1740s, while oysters and stout were consumed in huge quantities by the working class during Victorian times – oysters then being a cheap food – while seaside holidays (which developed as affordable for ordinary working people in the inter-war years) helped cultivate a taste for the likes of cockles and whelks and prawns (all sold in polystyrene containers with a tiny fork, so you can munch as you wander the market) and crab.
Jellied eels. Not a local treat I’ve ever taken to but Brian’s customers think they’re delicious.
Jellied eels, which Brian also sells, have long been a Cockney favourite but, as I grew up on smoked eel, I must admit I’ve never developed a taste for the jellied ones. Brian tells me that Brexit has made getting eels from the EU more expensive so its often Kiwi eels he now sells - I wish he offered a few smoked eels alongside the jellied ones. That said, he does sell whole cooked crabs - a real treat for me.
A bargain at £6 - I took this monster home and made salads, sandwiches and a curry.
Many of London’s working class neighbourhoods have changed demographically over the past seventy years with people from the former colonies settling there while the Cockneys, who once worked the docks and street markets, have relocated in large numbers to Kent and Essex (or Spain). This means demand for traditional seafood has faded - just as eel and pie shops have also largely vanished from the high street (I will do my promised report on local eel and pie shops, likely in the new year).
Thus I’m thankful Brian can still be bothered to purchase his fruits of the sea at Billingsgate market, rise early on a Saturday morning, drive into Walworth, tow his wagon into the position its occupied for many decades, set out his stall’s produce and always have a smile for his customers. He may no longer consider himself a Londoner but he is a valued part of my London life.
Squeeze celebrate the British seaside holiday - they’re from Deptford (a bit further south east than Walworth) so surely grew up nibbling on cockles, whelks, prawns and mussels.
Brian’s seafood stall on East Street. Long may the sun shine on him (and his stall).
* Brian subsequently informed me the Mike Oldfield concert didn’t feature Mike but a band he has assigned to play his music. Their leader told the audience Mike “was likely riding his jet-ski in the Bahamas”. I guess this is an easy way to make your back catalogue earn for you! Brian said how, even without Oldfield at the helm, it was an enjoyable gig.