by Craig Taylor
1.50 a.m.
PETER: Craig, come on. Look sharp! You okay? Now, what you’re going to do now, Craig, you’re going to sit there, right, you’ll take the handbrake off. The handbrake … That one there. [The milk float springs to life.] Come on, let’s go and see Tommy. All right, Dave? [He calls out as the float moves past.] All right, Mark? [He yells as the milk float slows down.] There are tricks, you see. Sometimes I’ve done my old phone trick, but I’ve been caught out before when I used that one. The old phantom phone trick is when I tell a guvnor, hold on, I’m just going to call Tommy and I put my phone to my ear and say, all right, Tommy? What kind of price on the broccoli? Now, it usually works a charm but one time I had it up to my ear and it started ringing. The phone started ringing! [He notices some rocket.] Now, I’ve just realized something. This is rocket, this is. It’s very short and I’m going to put it on now, because in another hour there won’t be none in. I want to get hold of Tommy because I want to pick it up now, see?
CT: So do you ever come into contact with the supermarket people?
PETER: Sometimes. The ironical thing about it is, sometimes when they have these promotions they’re cheaper than this market – how about that?
CT: So you can buy from them?
PETER: Well, I do sometimes. Only little things, because otherwise what happens is my customers say to me, how come you’re charging this, that and the other? And Tesco is only like 50p or something like that? And it’s because they’ve got this great big buying power and they can just source it, you know? [He notices some raspberries.] Okay, English raspberries. Dewdrop English raspberries. Here you go, mate. [He hands me a punnet overflowing with the freshest raspberries I’ve ever seen.] That’s all the stuff. Got your raspberries? They’re lovely first thing. There ain’t many people eating raspberries at two o’clock in the morning, Craig.
[He stops walking for a moment. We eat raspberries.]
PETER: So when you see your mates having breakfast at eight o’clock, say I had mine at two o’clock this morning, on a bit of rocket, I had some nice English raspberries. I tell you what you do, Craig. Eat your raspberries for two minutes. I’ll shoot upstairs and see Ian and ask him if there’s another lis
[The forklifts move past. The smell of crushed onion and coriander mingles with exhaust in the air. I lift up my boot and pick cherry pits from the treads. The market is both inside and outside. It’s hot tea and heaters in the Portakabins and fingerless gloves out by the stacks of fruit.]
2.05 a.m.
PETER: See all these people here? [He points to some of the customers looking at stacks of fruit.] They’re all shopholders, see, they’ve all got shops, but they’re all Turkish. Not many Englishmen in the industry now. The Englishmen come a little bit later. The stallholders from the market. And you’ll see them come in.
CT: So which markets would those be?
PETER: People from Surrey Street in Croydon, Berwick Street in the West End. There’s markets in North End Road, but they would normally go to Covent Garden. There’s a street market in Stratford that’s still got a few stalls there. [I start the milk float.] Be careful. Okay, your driving is okay.
CT: Beginner’s luck.
PETER: Just think, if ever you’re not a success as a writer, you can always drive one of these. Though because you’re a stranger in the market, everyone’s looking at you. They think you’re a policeman. Let’s go and see if those courgette vans have turned up. Come on. We’ll see Kevin. He’s one of the most experienced men in the market, Craig. There ain’t much he doesn’t know. Anything you want to know about the business, that’s your man. [We approach a large stall.] Kevin, have you got any fresh courgette flowers to arrive?
KEVIN: No.
PETER: No! Fibber.
KEVIN: No, I forgot to order them! As soon as those words come out your mouth I thought to myself, oh fuck! I’ve got no memory.
PETER: O kay, Kev, I’ll see you later. Don’t forget to order them for tomorrow, eh?
KEVIN: Yeah, that’s right.
PETER: He forgot to order them. [We’re away.] He forgot to order them. Now there’s a lot of winding up goes on in this market. One of the worst things is for a seller to come over and see what you’re up to. If a salesman knows you’re rushing about for something and you need it, then they get you at it. Now I’ve gone in there for courgette flowers and there ain’t none in and I need them for a customer, an important customer, so I go to Kevin just now and I said, Kev, courgette flowers? You just missed them, Pete, I had them. That’s what he said, been and gone. I said, got any fresh, I see you’re out of them. He said, I forgot to order them. See what I mean, it winds you up. That’s why I put those courgette flowers to one side earlier. See what I mean? Because at the other stall he only had three left and if he had none fresh come in I’ll bet them other two there are gone now. And I’d have gone back there and he’d have said, I did have them, Pete, but I sold them.
CT: How do you know how to do all this? Is it like an instinct every morning?
PETER: I don’t know. You’ve just got to be on your toes. The minute I get out of bed I start thinking all the time.
2.30 a.m.
[He tosses an apricot pit in the air and kicks it. He eats another apricot.]
PETER: I have a permanent stomach ache, Craig. What can you do? It’s fruit. You can’t change the fact it’s fruit.
2.45 a.m
PETER: See them girls over there? From Poland? They’d rather come over here and start work at eleven o’clock at night, working in the caff, delivering cups of teas round this market. All from Eastern Europe. Afghanistan. Romania. Czechoslovakia. All parts of Russia. They all come from there. All lovely girls, nice-looking girls. I think a few of them might have been prostitutes, but I’m not going to go there.
CT: Are there more countries represented in this market than thirty years ago?
PETER: Yeah, and I’ve got to be honest with you, Craig: it’s the salvation of this market. Thank the Lord for the Chinese and the Turks and the Asians. Because there’s not enough Englishmen here now. All the talking, the work that goes on – you see what I mean? You wouldn’t know it was nearly three o’clock in the morning. And all the business that goes on, people don’t realize. The millions of pounds that’s traded. All right, John? He’s one of my drivers. [He wears a fluorescent vest.]
JOHN: Did I tell you when I got escorted out of Tesco’s one day? I said their fruit was a load of shit. Which it was. Absolute rubbish.
PETER: They’ll sell you what they want to sell you.
JOHN: The worst thing in a supermarket is bananas. They’d be about grade 4, I should think. Personally, I go through everything. I go through every box.
CT: So what are you looking for?
JOHN: It has to be top quality, if it’s not good enough it doesn’t go on the pallet. You don’t just pick a box up and send it. That ain’t how it works. Take this one: I’ve opened this box to make sure the fruit is okay. Like they used to years ago, people should come to the main market to buy their own food. Back then you could turn around and say, there’s pride over there. See the way they lay the stuff out. There’s pride in the stuff.
CT: So who’s this pallet going out to?
JOHN: Lord’s Cricket Ground. We supply the King of Dubai. He’ll come over every summer for the racing. Yeah, it’s only a small order today. The other day it was over £2,000. Most people don’t realize good from the bad. They’ll just take what comes. They’ll eat category one, two and three without knowing the difference. We’re category one. That’s what we are. If I think it’s bad, I’ll tell Peter and Peter sends it back and gets me new stuff.
CT: Is there someone at, say, Lord’s who inspects the pallet?
JOHN: Yeah, they won’t take it unless they see it.
PETER: You can come with me today. I want to go out because I want to see the man. I’ll take you out to Lord’s today. Did you bring your cricket bat?
3.30 a.m.
&nbs
p; Sometimes he answers the phone by saying, ‘Courgette.’ Sometimes when he handles new potatoes he says, ‘Are these already parboiled?’ A stallholder tries to dissuade him: ‘It’s too rich for you today, Pete. It’s Fortnum and Mason around here today.’
3.40 a.m.
PETER: See, I’ll slow down. I slow my pace down when I’m on the market because if I’m rushing about for something they think, oh, hello, Pete, what you looking for? So I take my time, I walk on, I stand. Make out you’re not interested, know what I mean? But really I’ve seen something – cor, I like that – but the worst thing to do is make out you’re interested, you know what I mean? So I walk in the market, casually, not really interested, like this. ‘All right, Peter? Lots of salad here,’ someone will say. ‘Yeah, I don’t know if I want it today. How much is it anyway?’ You can’t show you’re interested. The minute you’re going somewhere a little bit lively, the minute you ask for cherry tomatoes a little too quickly – they know.
CT: This is when the acting starts? This is like the curtain rising on the Second Act.
PETER: If you like, yeah.
4.00 a.m.
PETER: I’m going to tell you something now: I want to meet up with him, Boris. What’s his name?
CT: Boris Johnson – the mayor of London?
PETER: Yeah, Boris. I want to talk to him because I’ll tell you something, you can’t imagine how much I have to pay in Congestion Charge. Every lorry I have to pay Congestion Charge. Colossal. The red routes, there’s parking fines. I’m the biggest hospital supplier in London. We must serve thirty hospitals. As far as I’m concerned, I’m providing a service. I’m like one of the fourth emergency services. I’m supplying. So I want to say to Boris: Listen, Mr Boris, Peter Thomas. Why should I have to pay Congestion Charge? All I’m doing is trying to get a living delivering. It isn’t like I’m going into London, parking up and having a cup of tea. So, am I an integral part of London? Yes, I fucking am!
4.10 a.m.
[He leans in, adjusts his shirt, tucks it in. He and the guvnor speak under the roar of the market. He walks away. He walks back. We walk on.]
CT: What just happened?
PETER: I asked him how much it was. He asked me a Tom Mix. I said a bit of a Flynn. I said, I’ll meet you in the middle, which is what?
CT: What’s a Flynn?
PETER: Flynn is a fiver.
CT: Meet you in the middle, at £5.50?
PETER: Yeah, and I’ve said no. I was going to walk on and he called me back.
CT: For what?
PETER: Down to a fiver. So I’ve saved myself £20 there. Just like that. Right. I’ve got to buy all these items today, right. We only want twenty boxes of celery, but I might want 200 of tomatoes. So if I save myself 20 or 30 pence on 200 tomatoes, it all adds up at the end of the day, six days a week. My money, see, that’s the difference, it’s my money.
4.20 a.m.
PETER: We’ve been in the game all our life and we know. It’s like a watchmaker, like anyone who used to make things years ago. Once that industry has finished, the artist has died with it. There was artists in this industry, but we’re a dying breed because of the supermarkets. They’ve nearly killed us off. And once we’ve gone, that’s it.
CT: So what is the artistry?
PETER: To know your produce. To know a tomato and to taste it and to know that’s a lovely eating tomato. A lot of people come in the industry now, they don’t know that a nice small tomato this time of year from Spain is a lovely eating tomato. They go for Dutch, which ain’t a great flavour tomato, you know? It’s just knowing. My son’s in the business. You’ll see him later on. I show him, but where do you go from there? I don’t know. Every year more people drop off the edge, it’s yet another stallholder that’s gone out of business. You hear it all the time. I might say, I ain’t seen Fred for some time? He’s packed up, retired. What’s happened to his stall? Well, no, there’s no more stalls. What about his son? No, he didn’t want to do it. He was in another game, you know. That’s it. That’s another family business gone.
5.00 a.m.
PETER: See, now, these tomatoes are nice, but I want a little bit more backward. Backward, green. If you want something to last, you’ve got to buy it backwards, see? If they’re too coloured by tomorrow they’ll be a bit more coloured and I don’t want them, so what I want is a bit of backwards.
5.40 a.m.
PETER: I just want to do a check on my list here now, Craig. And then we’ll have a quick cup of tea and then we’ll shoot out to Lord’s.
CT: Is there anyone you don’t get along with, in here?
PETER: We all need each other. You have the odd discrepancies but you’ve got to make up for it because my grandfather said to me, son, a proud man will starve to death, you can’t afford to be too proud. Especially when you’re buying and selling. We spend a lifetime together, all of us. You might call someone a c-u-n-t but you’ll still buy £1,000 from him. The language round here gets interesting. Everybody in here – Chinese, Pakistani, Turkish – knows a few of the more international words. I’ve come from one lorry to fifty-five. I ain’t done bad, have I? And when I retire, I’ll be able to walk out with my head held high and these boys saying he fucking supported us all through his life. See what I mean? Keep moving. Butternut squash. Let’s go down. This way, Craig. A couple more places, then we can go and have a cup of tea.
6.00 a.m.
[He examines a squash.]
PETER: Butternuts. There ain’t a rhyming slang for that. I fuck about sometimes. Nutterbut? Oh blimey.
*
6.20 a.m.
[The birds arrive. The noise of forklifts gives way to chirping. The skies are brighter as the morning light seeps in.]
PETER: What would happen years ago, Craig, all the buyers here in the market would buy all their stuff, buy all their bargains and there’d be a competition who’d bought the best. And you’d hear them. What you done? I bought some tomatoes, they’re out of this fucking world. I only give £2 for ’em. I bought some cucumbers – as long as that, green as grass and he was only charging half a quid, and it was all lies, know what I mean?
CT: Like being round a bunch of fishermen.
PETER: Yeah, exactly right, yeah.
CT: Do people ever come up with new tricks? I mean you guys have known each other for so long. You must know everyone’s tricks and they must know all of yours.
PETER: It’s all different. If I was buying lemons I’d find a bad lemon and put it in my pocket and when I go across there, I’d put a bad one in the box. And then I’d call him over and say, look at the state of these lemons? Fucking hell! I’d say, I might be able to have a go, but the money’s got to be right, if I’m buying them you’ve got to do something for me. My boy, look. [A young man approaches.]
CT: Is that him?
PETER: Craig, this is Ben, my boy. Ben, this is Craig. He’s going to write a book about me.
BEN: Yeah, right.
PETER: He’s been here since one o’clock this morning.
BEN: Have ya? You done well.
PETER: He did do well, didn’t he?
BEN: Did you have any Red Bull or anything? You feel all right?
CT: No, I’m fine. Why didn’t I have any Red Bull?
BEN: Do you want a Red Bull?
CT: No, not now. God, no.
PETER: Ben was in the building game, doing all right and all of a sudden it fell away. Building trade just fell away, so he’s come here. There’s a fellow who had some rounds selling to cafes and restaurants and he’s retiring, so he was selling his business, so I bought it off him and give it to my boy. All I’ve done is bought him a set of tools, the rest is up to him. He’s done fantastic.
CT: And you know what happens when you start with one van.
PETER: Absolutely right, but I won’t let him go to two. I forbid it.
CT: Why?
PETER: Because he’s doing fantastic. He’s got a nice lifestyle now. Fantastic. I don’t want h
im to have the stress and the worries that I have. Worrying about drivers turning up and people not turning up, people not paying you. Too many worries. The way he is at the moment is the best way. Let’s go out to Lord’s Cricket Ground. We’ll go out there and when I come back I have to run the business, don’t I, lots of paperwork, all that’s got to be done. I get home about four o’clock each day, do a bit of gardening.
I’ve enjoyed working here very much but it’s not been easy. It’s got to be harder now than what it’s ever been. Yeah, what you have to put in to make it pay. But that’s what you have to do, to be successful, it’s what you have to do, whether you’re in this game or any game. You’ve seen the whole operation from one o’clock. This afternoon, all my office staff will be taking orders. Then from six o’clock my night staff come in up the office. It’s like a conveyor belt, know what I mean? And then it starts again.
6.40 a.m.
[The morning shimmers in front of me. More birds have gathered in the girders and they swoop down towards the spills of the day. Peter gets into the van.]