A people’s history of Leeds Kirkgate Market, as told by a few of its most charismatic traders.
Introduced by Lorraine Harding and Tom Bailey
Interviews by Lorraine Harding and Jane Horbury
Pictures by Jonathan Turner
THIS
MUST
BE THE
PLACE
Enter Leeds Kirkgate Market today and you’ll be confronted by a vast variety of stalls, each one offering something unique and each with a story behind it. It’s an old-fashioned shopping experience, where you can end up buying things you never knew you needed, and having conversations with people you’d never meet otherwise. The Market is a blend of cultures from all over the world and it’s been a fixture on the Leeds city centre map for around 200 years.
There have been markets at the present Kirkgate site since 1822. The first covered markets arrived in 1857 and the first stone buildings twenty years later. This part of the Market still stands today, despite many changes - and a major fire. If you come in through Vicar Lane, you’ll see a huge art-deco style building, containing stalls constructed in period style. This area of the Market dates from the early twentieth century and is Grade I listed. At the opposite end are two huge spaces sometimes aptly described as “aircraft hangars” These were constructed to compensate for the loss of space after the 1975 fire - seemingly on a temporary basis! Nowadays they house the enormous food court, where customers can choose their lunch from a vast array of stalls.
The history of Leeds Market, however, is not just a history of buildings. It is also a history of people, and in particular of families; families whose perseverance, skill, tenacity, and sheer hard work have carried them through over generations as stall holders, despite difficult times and misfortunes, such as war and fire. In many ways, the market itself is a family, the traders united by their will to keep going, to keep selling, to keep their businesses alive.
In order to tell our history of this space, we were keen to meet traders who had been in the market business for a long time. Most people know that Marks & Spencer started In Leeds Kirkgate Market. But what of other traders, other entrepenuers? The history of the Market is one of change, continual adaptation; we wanted to hear how people had adapted and thrived (or not) to the many changes. The traders we met sell a variety of goods and services, but they all have something in common, qualities that will be revealed as we share their stories.
The Fishmonger
If you come into the market on New York Street, the first stall you’ll see is Ramsden’s. Trays of fresh fish of all species are laid out for eager customers. The stall is never quiet, there’s always someone wanting seafood. This is Fish Row and Ramsden’s in just one of several thriving fishmongers. The huge blue and white sign proclaims that Ramsden’s has been in business since 1962. Next to that sign is another one: “Arthur Welham Ltd, established for over 100 years”. The two stalls are actually one business, now run by the Ramsden brothers with their Mum. But who was Arthur Welham? And what was his relationship to the Ramsdens? We are unable to capture the voices of the original fishmonger so we must rely on the testimony of his descendants. David and Carole Ramsden were kind enough to recount their (fishy) tale, starting with the man who began the business: Arthur Welham.
Arthur Welham I
Arthur’s story goes back to the late 19th century. He was born, the son of a slaughterer/butcher in the slums near Mabgate, about 1875. As Carole Ramsden tells us, “He started off with nothing”. He was first recorded as a fishmonger when he was only 15 - slightly before the founding of Fish Row, with was in 1894. Around that year, aged about 20, he moved to a market stall in the row; in fact he acquired three stalls eventually, and as it turned out founded a dynasty of market fish traders which continues in the fourth generation.
Arthur Welham II
Arthur Welham's son was also Arthur, known as Arthur Welham Jnr. Seemingly he was not as competent as his father. Carole tells us that Arthur Snr “had to come back to work when he was 60.” She elaborates: “Because his son, which was another Arthur Welham, he’d run it down that much.” In fact Arthur Welham’s true heir on the fish stalls seems to have been his grandson, Freddie, Arthur junior’s son. “He started running it right,” says Carole.
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“He started off with nothing!”
Carole Ramsden
Left - The original Arthur Welham. Right - Arthur Ramsden hard at work at one of his stalls in the 1980s.
“He phoned me up to say the Market's on fire. I went, you what? And I looked out of my window- because we lived over in Redhalls at that side at the time. And you could see the flames. That were devastating. That were the downfall of us all, I think.”
Carole Ramsden
Between the Arthurs
Meanwhile, Arthur Snr’s other child, Elsie, married a butcher from Oakwood named William Ramsden. He soon went to work on the fish stall. “So they married,” says Carole. “So, of course, he had to go to work in the business, didn’t he? Because he’d married into the family he didn’t have much choice!” Perhaps this enforced shift of employment was a measure of his new father-in-law’s powerful character? William Ramsden died of a stroke aged 61, and at that point his widow Elsie, then in her 50s, went to work in the market herself. Elsie also seems to have been a strong character. “57-year-old when she started work,” Carole says. “And she were there every day. Well, apart from Sunday, obviously.” It involved catching a bus at six every morning and finishing work at six in the evening. Elsie’s nephew Freddie was supposedly in charge – but his older aunt was clearly more of a business mind. Elsie worked on the stalls until the age of 75.
Arthur Ramsden
Elsie’s son (and Carole’s late husband) was another Arthur. Arthur William Ramsden. He worked on the Welham stalls from an early age, continuing to do so when he left school. Arthur was only 19 when his father died. Eventually Arthur obtained his own stall which went under the Ramsden name and later he bought out his cousin Freddie Welham’s business, so the two businesses essentially combined. Arthur’s life was a tough one. Carole remembers her mother- in-law Elsie as “a hard taskmaster.” She continues, “Well, he used to play football, which were quite good. Leeds Amateurs. And she says, if you break your leg, how much do you think you're going to get? You won't be able to work. So you won't have no money. So he jumped the football.” Early starts going to the wholesale market were the norm. Sometimes in his youth he enjoyed pubs and night clubs after work, resulting in just a few hours’ sleep. “If he’d ever driven home from night clubs and fallen asleep in’t car, she’d even have thrown cold water over him!’ recalls Carole with amusement. Having been woken up this way, off he went back to work.
Arthur Ramsden’s life in the market was severely impacted by an event now infamous in the history of Leeds market - a serious fire in 1975. At that stage he had not finished paying off the loan on his stall - and then the stall, along with much else, burned down. The devastating experience of the fire has clearly left a mark on Carole. Their son David, although not born for another nine years afterwards, has also absorbed much of the family memory of this traumatic event. Carole’s description of what happened to Arthur is graphic: “He phoned me up to say the Market's on fire. I went, you what? And I looked out of my window- because we lived over in Redhalls at that side at the time. And you could see the flames. We thought John [Arthur’s eldest son] had got lost in it because he'd gone back in for something. But when it set on fire, all the pipes were painted. There were no water sprinklers in them days, you know. And the fire just literally ran all over the pipes and where the paint was. That were devastating. That were the downfall of us all, I think.”
David continues the story: “Well, John, he was in there when the fire started. He got some of the other traders together with hose pipes and started fighting the fire. And then it still seemed to be spreading. My dad went in and said, look, you all need to get out now. It's up the wall, it's above your head, it's on the ceiling. We need to just get out. So my dad took them all out. Because they'd have probably just kept at it with hose pipes until the fire brigade got there and then left. So he said, come on, let's all get out of here.” Carole goes on: “And by the time the fire brigade got there and started tackling it, it was just spreading everywhere.” David says: “There was a lot of talk that someone had decided to set their shop on fire for insurance and thought it would all just get dealt with pretty quickly.” Carole: “Nothing was proven.”
Two days after the fire some at least of the market was back up and running, but the replacement provisions were anything but satisfactory. Carole tells us: “But then when the fire burnt the market down, they put us on George Street, trestles with plastic coating on. There was no water, no nothing.” The winter of 1975-6 was freezing, while the following summer was roasting. The Ramsdens and other stalls were outside for 12 months. And as Arthur had just acquired a warehouse on York Street, his insurance would not pay out because he had alternative premises! After this phase the new fish stall was placed right in the centre of the market, near the huge ‘temporary' building which still stands today. David recalls it: “You were trapped in permanent darkness in there because there's no light, you're in the middle of the market, there's no windows. So in winter you'd arrive at night, you'd leave at night unless you went outside.” They were there for 25 years before being relocated to their present site.
“You were trapped in permanent darkness in there because there's no light, you're in the middle of the market, there's no windows. So in winter you'd arrive at night, you'd leave at night unless you went outside.”
David Ramsden
Carole and her sons
Carole had a hairdressing business before having children but she eventually found herself being drawn into fishmongery. One day, a member of staff didn’t turn up for work, so her husband persuaded her to help out. “He went, can you just jump on a minute? Well, that were it, weren't it? Just jump on, and then it just built up and built up.” She still works on the shellfish bar part-time. David Ramsden, Arthur Ramsden’s youngest son, now has a major role with the business. Arthur’s eldest son John worked on the stalls for a time - indeed he was present when the fire broke out - before striking out in other directions; he now has a haulage business. Second son Jamie went straight into the business and is currently responsible for buying.
The Ramsdens have been through a lot, but despite it all, they have kept going. The fish business is a profitable one and they continue to thrive in an uncertain time. Here’s to the next 100 years!
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Left - Ramsden's continues to thrive in 2025. Right - Carole Ramsden with her two sons.
The Nut Shop
The Nut Shop is a minute’s walk from Fish Row in the top end of the market. We meet Joanne Johnson who, despite having worked there for years, is still in love with the shop. “I love the smells,” she confides. “I love everything about it. On a morning when I open that back door and the shutters have been down and I walk into the shop there's a smell that you just can't bottle and it's everything. It's the nuts, it's the spices, it's the dried fruits, it's the herbs. As a little girl, when I walked into that shop, I was intoxicated by the sight of all these different things that I'd never seen, weird and wonderful fruits and nuts and things that I didn't know.”
The shop has been at the Market for almost as long as Ramsden’s Fish Stall. Joanne has been there since the 1970s. “I started as a 14-year-old Saturday girl,” she says. “My mum came to work for the Nut Shop when I was seven years old. I was lucky enough that the gentleman that owned the business let me come behind the counter when I came down to meet my mum from work, so I was always around it.” The owner, Mr Burton, gave her a job, “even though I was a bit of a bugger.” Joanne describes him as “my mentor, my friend. We lost him 12 years ago. He was a gentleman, but he was tough. I can still hear myself saying the things that he used to say. He taught me so much.”
Joanne describes herself as being “born to be a shop girl”. She continues: “As a little girl when I was about five or six, I was given as a Christmas present, a little plastic cash register and I’d play for hours. My mum was a single parent, so me and my mum lived with my grandparents. I used to pinch my Nana's tins out of the cupboard and make a little shop in the kitchen, or in the garden in the summer. Eventually my Grandad built me my own little shop out of wood, with a little counter and a space at the side so I could put all my Nana's tins on. I was there serving my imaginary friends, ringing in my little pennies with plastic money in the till.”
“I love everything about it. On a morning when I open that back door and the shutters have been down and I walk into the shop there's a smell that you just can't bottle and it's everything.”
Joanne Johnson
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Left - Mr Burton, the original owner of The Nut Shop. Right - Joanne, hard at work in 2025.
“I don't drive a Rolls Royce, I don't live in a big mansion. But I don't owe money, I can pay my bills, there's food in my cupboard, and I don't worry about turning the heating on, so I'm very lucky.”
Joanne Johnson
When she was 18, Mr Burton made Joanne the manager of one of his two shops: “I ran one of the shops for a few years and then, bit by bit there was a decline in the business.” The owner consolidated the shops into one and brought Joanne and her mum with him. “Every year when he went on holiday, the January holiday, he used to come back and say, Right girls, I think I'm going to retire. I'm going to sell the business. This went on for a number of years and he never did. And then one particular year he came home from his holiday and he said, I've had enough. He was in his seventies and he was doing a few hours less each week. And he said, This time I mean it, the business is going up for sale.”
“I went home that night and I couldn't sleep. I couldn't stop thinking about it. And in the early hours of the morning, I woke my husband up. I'd just been tossing and turning. We hadn't been married very long. We'd only been together maybe three years. We lived in a small back-to-back house, we only had a little old car, he had a motorbike. Just hand-to-mouth. I just woke him up and said, We need to buy the Nut Shop. And he sort of laid there in the middle of the night. What?” Joanne and her husband scrimped and saved to get the money to buy the shop and she’s been there ever since: “My mum continued to work for the company. Nigel, my husband, helped out on his days off.”
Things haven’t always been plain sailing. The shop used to be located in the 1976 Hall, where the Food Court now is. Trade was dwindling so Joanne moved up to her existing stall. “This shop used to be a florist,” Joanne recalls, showing us round the unit. “It had no shutters, nothing. It was just a mess. So we had shop fitters in, they came in, they stripped it back to nothing and rebuilt the shop to look as close to the old shop as it possibly could. They were a fantastic team of guys. They took all my ideas on board - even measured me so I could reach the shelves. It was phenomenal. It was unreal. It was tough at first because people couldn't find us because it is a long way down there and it's, you know, a bit higgledy-piggledy to get to. But eventually they did.” Joanne talks about an ill-fated bid to buy the card stall next to hers; the venture did not work, but Joanne kept going despite the setback.
As we talk to Joanne, she has to break off to serve the customers; it’s clear they all know her and have affection for the shop. “Some of them don't even speak anymore,” she says. “They just walk up to a counter and I've got what they want ready. It's like going into a bar and ordering your favourite drink. Without those people, there is no Nut Shop. So I'm eternally, grateful for those people that keep coming. Some of them have watched me grow up from being a 14-year-old Saturday girl and I’m still serving one particular couple. They're very elderly now, but they remember me as a young girl.”
Joanne seems content: “I don't drive a Rolls Royce, I don't live in a big mansion. But I don't owe money, I can pay my bills, there's food in my cupboard, and I don't worry about turning the heating on, so I'm very lucky. I've worked very hard, I do six days a week. Every day is different because every day the customers change and there’s always something new to do. So, I'm very lucky, I'm very, very lucky that I do still love it there's very few mornings where I wake up and think, I don't want to go.” What next for the Nut Shop? Joanne is pragmatic. “I might be able to take early retirement in a few years,” she says. “We'll see if anybody wants to purchase it - if they're interested in taking it over. If not, it'll be a very, very sad day.”
The Barber
Brian’s Barbers is a hidden gem in Leeds Kirkgate Market, just a stone’s throw from Ramsden’s and the Nut Shop. As you descend down the steps into the barber shop, it’s as if you were stepping back in time. The walls are festooned with vintage pictures and gig posters; the chairs are old fashioned; there’s even a display of antiquated tonsorial equipment. Brian Bettison has been cutting hair since the early 1980s. And the shop has been here since 1907.
Brian’s mum and dad never expected him to become a barber. “My family were either in the building trade or in the market trade,” he says. “And personally, I didn't want to do either.” Brian tried working on building sites. “I saw all the damage, the backache, the trouble - and the drinking. I didn't want a part of that.” But he didn’t fancy the market either. “Working all hours outside in all weathers, lugging all the time, up at the crack of the dawn. My mother and father worked the markets. My mother started on the outside market when she was nine, selling handkerchiefs. She got on well with a Jewish lady who took her under her wing. My mum missed a lot of schooling through illness and she couldn't read and write - and she stuck up for her.”
Brian’s introduction to barbering came at his all-boys school. “It wasn't the greatest of schools. It’s where everybody who failed the 11 plus went. I was classed as stupid and thick, but actually I was dyslexic.” It was only by chance that Brian became a barber. “On the notice board was a sign saying: Ladies Hairdressing. I thought, this is an afternoon off school where I could be with some girls! I put my name down and my friend went with me. We were the only two people in the whole school who went. We had a fantastic time and I thought, right, this is for me. I'm going to do this.”
Brian took up the trade, initially in ladies’ hairdressing, until he found he was allergic to the chemicals they used in the perms and treatments. He then moved to Gents Barbering. But it wasn’t easy. “Hairdressing is really one of the lowest paid jobs to do until you work for yourself,” Brian informs us. His family weren’t keen on Brian’s profession. “They’d say, Get yourself a proper job!” Then Brian’s friend persuaded him to come with him to answer a job advert. “He wouldn't tell me where it was,” he says. “And he brought me to the bloody market!”
“I took over the shop when the old gaffer had to retire. When I took over this in ‘81, I made an agreement to pay cash. He wanted it there and then. I had to draw out £15,000, in cash, in a carrier bag.”
Brian Bettison
Brain reflects on 45 years in a changing market, blending nostalgia, grit, and love for his craft in the face of an uncertain future
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“I'm 65. I want to carry on working until I'm 70, touch wood. My son and daughters don’t want to do it. I get lonely because I miss my friends who were here. My boss's kit is still here. I've spent more time with him than I did with any woman in my life.”
Brian Bettison
“That was 1981 and we worked together for over 40 years,” Brian continues. “I took over the shop when the old gaffer had to retire. I kept the same staff, some of them 20, 30 years.” Even though Brian works alone nowadays, he still keeps the chairs and his colleagues’ cutting tools on display. “Everything I had learned prepared me to take over this shop.,” he reminisces. “When I took over this in ‘81, I made an agreement to pay cash. He wanted it there and then. I had to draw out £15,000, in cash, in a carrier bag.”
Brian seems to love working in his shop. He sets his own hours. “I don't work Wednesdays, because I take my mum shopping. I finish at half three, because I want to get home early. I'm tired. I get up at six o'clock, I get here for eight, and I potter around, and then open up at nine. It suits me to have Wednesday off. I can't have any more off, because it'll make the other days even busier, and that will knock hell out of me. It’s hard work.”
He never has a problem getting customers – partly because he only charges £5 a haircut! “I've always had my eye on the ball,” Brian reveals. “The one thing that's kept us going for so long is the price.” Like all market traders, Brian has his regulars. “I have one or two customers that are loyal for life. They've been coming all that time, I am now doing the second generation. We get customers in waves, when fashion changes they come in, then they settle down, get married, move away, they vanish. Five years down the line they come [back] in.” Brian tells us about one customer who moved to London but came back twenty years later – and he was still there. Brian has faith in his customers. “99% of people are really decent, and I deal with the not so affluent people. There's a lot of honest, decent people. You get new people and we’ve always had passing trade. Now we’ve got different people altogether because of the internet - not that I advertise. We get a lot of Asians because they talk on the internet and they don't want to be paying £20, £30.”
Despite it all – recessions, Brexit, Covid – Brian has continued. He recalls a period in the 1980s when the Council were going to redevelop the market. He and some other traders disagreed with the ideas and worked together to object. “The market was going to still be here, but it would be going underground, and then above it would be, shops and car park,”” Brian says. “So basically, it would finish the market.” The traders won their battle and the market stayed overground – except Brian, who has always been subterranean.
What now for the market? Brian is optimistic. “It seems like there's a little glimmer of hope that the market is at a turning point. I'm not quite sure which way it's going to go, but you've got to bear in mind the market has always changed. And it changes not because of the public, but because of the people who work it. If they think there's going to be a call for something, people will come in to work it. There's new businesses who want to come in, they were talking about building a Chinatown. This could be the new Chinatown”
And for Brian himself? “I'm 65. I want to carry on working until I'm 70, touch wood. My son and daughters don’t want to do it. I get lonely because I miss my friends who were here. My boss' kit is still here. I've spent more time with him than I did with any woman in my life. So you do miss that comradeship. I've had a good living from this shop. I've had a good life. I love it, I love it. I've always liked doing it. I remember an old chap said to me once, years ago, pick a job you like doing and you'll be doing it for the rest of your life. I’d like it to carry on. But at the same time, I'd like to just close it and leave. And keep the memories that I have. Now they’ve all gone. I'm the last one, so it is a bit lonely. But it's moulded my personality. It's means everything to me. You just got to persevere.”
The Grocer
Neil’s Continental is found in the 1981 Hall, a modern addition to the Leeds Kirkgate Market complex. The stall is piled high with produce, but many of the fruit and vegetables will be unfamiliar to more traditional white British tastes. Fresh callaloo, yam, plantain and cassava; Afro-Caribbean food, staples of West Indian cuisine. There’s one strange thing though – the stall is run by Pardeep XX, who is of Indian heritage.
Pardeep starts by recounting some of his family history. “My father's from India,” he says. “And my mum was born in England, so that makes me a second generation British Asian. My grandad was born in India and he moved in the mid-50s.” When Pardeep’s grandad arrived, he shared a large house with a lot of other immigrants and he didn’t even have his own bed. “13 people, and 13 more people, 26 people. 13 people did day shift, 13 people did night shift.” It seems like his grandad was a bit of an entrepreneur. “He used to do door-to-door sales, selling clothes, you know, with a suitcase, like Del Boy.”
But how did he come to be involved in Afro-Carribean food? Pardeep explains. “One time - it was just before spring, so it's still a bit cold - he knocked on the door of a Caribbean family. They said, we need some thick socks and woolly jumper. My grandad said, well, it's not really cold now. They said, it is for us! They were used to warm weather. So he brought them socks, he started selling them rugs to put on concrete floors. Then they said, we want our food. He goes, what - Caribbean food? And he started importing it - and that's how we're here today. He started bringing food in, the wholesale business that he has still goes now, even though he’s passed away. When I was a kid, I used to deliver wholesale food to my mum and dad's shop and all over - Nottingham, Derby, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield.”
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“I've got loads of customers. I've got good customers, I've got bad customers. I've got customers that I fight with - and they'll come back next week.”
Pardeep Sumal
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Left - Neil’s Continental attracts a wide diversity of customers. Right - The stall remains a family business.
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“The market, it's your life. I like the lifestyle, the positive thing is you meet so many people. We always have a good banter in here. It's your lifestyle, that's what you choose. It's a family thing too.”
Pardeep Sumal
As well as the wholesale business, Pardeep’s family also worked as market traders. “From 1985 we had a market stall in Sheffield, Castle Market,” he recalls. “My mum and dad ran that for a long time.” An opportunity arose to have another stall in Leeds Kirkgate market so the family bought it and eventually sent Pardeep to run it. “As time progressed, the parents came to the age where they retire and wanted to take it easy. So we got rid of the shop in Sheffield and then we moved here. Me and my wife have been here now for years. Happy days.”
“I've got loads of customers,” confides Pardeep. “I've got good customers, I've got bad customers. I've got customers that I fight with - and they'll come back next week.” Pardeep clearly enjoys the jovial atmosphere of the market. He tells us about the practical jokes he plays on his fellow traders. He relishes the way of life. despite the downsides. ”You're here more than you are at home,” he says. “It’s a lifestyle, it's your life. You see the same people every day. You get to know your customers, you know your regulars. I used to see people with prams, and then 20 years later, they're taller than you – well, I'm not that tall myself. It's like a community, being a market trader. it's definitely like a community.”
It can be tough on the Market, but Pardeep is phlegmatic. “It's always been a bit of a hustle and bustle, I've seen three generations of people buying food now.” He loves the trading life and can’t see changing now: “I'll carry on for a while. My bills are paid, I don't own anything, I have nice food at home, we've got a nice life. It can always be worse and it can always be better - you always want it to be better. But you don't look at the downside. This is one of the biggest indoor markets in Europe, it's slap bang in Leeds, near the bus station.” He is a fan of the new Food Court. “The food court's good because if you work in an office and you go get something to eat around here, a buttie costs you a fortune. In here, the food's alright, it’s proper food, it's bought fresh. I notice a lot of traders, they buy a lot of in-house food, like vegetables and things like that. So they all support each other, which is good. And it's good food.”
“The market, it's your life,” says Pardeep. “I like the lifestyle, the positive thing is you meet so many people.” He’s more known in Leeds than in his hometown. “I live in Bradford and if I went through town centre in Bradford, I wouldn't know my way around it. I wouldn't know anyone, not even as a friend. But in Leeds, I'm, like, a film star. Just a friendly face in the market.” Pardeep thinks he’ll stay on the Market, whatever happens. “You have a good living, you meet a lot of nice people, that's the main thing, you always interact with your customers. You could go to work every day and sit behind a computer - and you're just sat there, you're just pressing your buttons, you can't move about, you can't have a laugh on a joke. We always have a good banter in here. It's your lifestyle, that's what you choose. It's a family thing too. I’m third generation now. And my wife and son are here. It’s a family!”
The Chicken Shop
At the bottom of Leeds Kirkgate Market you’ll 1976 Hall, which was bulit very quickly in the aftermath of the fire a year earlier. In this vast space is the newest addition to the Market – the Food Court. A host of stalls over food from all over the world, iddeal for friends and family who have different tastes. One of the most popular stalls is Jenny’s Jerk Chicken. Queues for hot lunches start gathering most lunchtimes. Jenny set up her food business in 2014, moving to the market two years later. As well as selling food, Jenny works as a translator for the Army. She’s one of the Market’s newest arrivals so we wanted to hear her story.
“I grew up in Cameroon and then we later moved to France,” Jenny tells us. “My mom was a single mother and she always struggled to have food for us. Sometimes my mom would have to skip meals. I never wanted that to be an issue for my children or anyone around me.” Jenny has an infectious love of food – and she wants to share that love. “I know that the food that we had in Cameroon was really good. I felt we could only have really good food when my grandma came. Food is that moment where we actually sit down together. I always knew that food brings people together, it brings joy. I thought, if there's sadness when we don't have food and there's happiness when we have food, why don't I bring more of that happiness to other people?”
Like Pardeep, Jenny caters for the Afro-Carribean community – despite not coming from a purely West Indian background herself. “The food that we make is Afro-Caribbean,” Jenny explains. “My grandma was the one bringing the Caribbean food. Funnily enough when I got to the UK, all my friends were Caribbean - and the food that they make and the food that we make in Cameroon, they're really similar. I felt this is the food that I used to eat, the names are just different.”
“I grew up in Cameroon. My mom was a single mother and she always struggled to have food for us. Sometimes my mom would have to skip meals. I never wanted that to be an issue for my children or anyone around me.”
Jenny Barry
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The dynamic staff at Jenny’s Jerk Chicken provide meals for a huge number of people in the food court.
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“The food court has really transformed things. There’s a variety of different stalls, different shops. The market is changing.”
Jenny Barry
“Jenny's Jerk Chicken started in 2015,” she says. “We used to have a catering van, but it was messy because the van would break down and you always have to fix it. We were mainly a street food company. We’d go around everywhere, even at night.” The van would pitch up at nightclubs in the city and was very popular. “People started asking us, don't you guys have a permanent location? You'd be surprised how many drunk people would be like, can we come in the daytime to get some of your food?”
Jenny decided to try the Market, initially pitching her van in the outside space. “When they opened the Food Court we thought it was a good opportunity for us to go inside.” Why the Market? “We have this perspective that the market is for older generation and my food appeals to younger generation. I was a student at Leeds Beckett and we used to go out almost like every weekend, like Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays. We wouldn’t say, let's just go to the market. People saw the market as a dirty place. Not a place that's very appealing for a younger generation. But we knew the market was going to do everything they could to bring the younger people back. The food court has really transformed things. There’s a variety of different stalls, different shops. The market is changing. They're doing all their best to bring people on board with social media.”
Despite her upbeat tone, Jenny does face challenges. Like everyone, the Cost-of-Living crisis affected her customers. “I know people are struggling a lot with parking in the city at the moment, Jenny admits. “The parking keeps going up every time. So we've lost some of our customers. We used to have people that come from Sheffield, from Wakefield to come to the market to get the food.” Now there’s more business on online delivery services like Deliveroo and UberEats. Jenny is defiant: “We don't want to push people to go online to get stuff. We want people to come down, have a good time, just relax, have a good day out. You know, because this all about working with communities, bringing people together, mental wellbeing and stuff like that.”
“We know the cost of living is very high. It is tough for people.” It’s been tough for Jenny too. She has sometimes had to use income from her other job to help the business. But the price rises are real. “Once you have a customer base, you do all your best to satisfy them. But the same product that you bought yesterday for ten pounds, I see now is twelve pounds. We will have to absorb those costs. We can't go and change our menu as we please. We’ve had the same menu for over two years. However, every other price is constantly fluctuating. And we are just having to take those costs on board.”
For some, the Market has a reputation as being for older people. A more traditional shopping experience. But Jenny doing her best to defy that stereotype. “Most of my customers would be around 18 to 30,” she says. “With the older generation there's a lack of education around Afro-Caribbean food. They have a perspective that it's a very spicy food - which it used to be. But we have modernized our food. We don't have any chilli at all. We have our spice on the side and if people want to add the chili, they feel free to do that.” Jenny is on a journey to educated people who may be unfamiliar with Afro-Caribbean food. “It’s just a cultural norm for what people have grown up with,” she says.
Jenny is now at the point where she’s ready to expand her business. “I've been in the army for 11 years,” she admits. “I'm leaving now because I really want to take the food business further, look for investors. You know, we won the Entrepreneur of the Year, sponsored by Goldman Sachs. I'm trying to expand the business and focus more on getting people to really try the food - and possibly get into supermarkets as well.”
A Family Business
It’s clear from these accounts that family and community feature strongly in the lives of market traders. Some were family businesses - the Ramsdens had been in the Leeds markets for four generations, with many family members involved with the stalls; Pardeep’s parents ran a market stall in Sheffield and then Leeds; Brian’s family were either in the building trade or the market trade. Joanne’s mother worked in the Nut Shop before she did. Jenny took the inspiration for her food business from her Aunt. But the Market itself is also a kind of family - a community where links are built up over long periods of time, with other traders and with regular customers. “It’s not just a rapport,” says Brian. “I've got a friendship with them. It's not just a customer relationship.” Pardeep enjoys meeting so many people, loves the feeling of being known. Joanne agrees – it’s her customers that makes it worth it. “The premise of the business is regular customers,” she says. “Without those regular customers we wouldn’t exist.” Some customers spanned many decades. And at Christmas, Joanne says: ‘I go home with a plethora of presents from customers, it’s lovely.’ Jenny’s customers are her business – and they are mainly under 30.
Market traders, to be successful, need to be able to identify an opportunity and seize it. Arthur Welham, the ancestor of the present-day Ramsdens, was a fishmonger at a very young age, and obtained a market stall when fish row opened. Jenny, herself from Cameroon, saw the need of the Afro-Caribbean community in Leeds for the food they enjoyed and were familiar with; and Pardeep’s father, himself from India, did the same. Brian and Joanne both seized the opportunity to buy their stall when the previous owners decided to retire. Joanne later sought and obtained a move to a stall in a busier part of the market when business grew rather slack; Jenny jumped at the opportunity to go into the food court. The imagination to see where an opportunity exists and grasp it with both hands is crucial to market traders’ viability.
But so are perseverance, determination and hard work. The life of a market trader is perhaps not quite as tough as it used to be, when very early starts were the norm. But it still involves long hours in not very comfortable conditions. Regardless of discomfort or tiredness you have to keep going. Arthur Ramsden’s mother was known to throw water over him to wake him up and get him back to work. Brian resisted the idea of working in the market when he was young because of the hardship involved. Nevertheless, becoming a barber led to him working in the market for many years. ‘It’s hard work’, he told us. In Brians’s mind there are two sorts of people – those who want to work hard and those who want “everything on a plate.” It’s the former who thrive running a market stall. Pardeep agrees: “Having a market stall, it's not for everyone,” he says. “You have to stick at it.” Joanne has a similar work ethic: “I learned how you have to be disciplined when you're self-employed, I mean, I could say, ah, Friday night, shall we go home early and have a glass of wine? But no, because my business is open from nine till five, so I'm here till five o'clock.”
The market has seen many changes over the years. The Ramsden family spoke with sorrow and some anger about what they describe as the decline of the market over the decades and the huge loss in the variety of goods offered by stalls, especially a drop in those selling various foodstuffs. “There were other goods too in the past: flowers, shoes, quality clothes and handbags, wallpaper, paint, pets,” says Carole. “People used to come to the market for everything!’ This loss in variety seems to be partially due to the fire and its long-tern consequences, and partly to poor management decision, costs and regulations. Pardeep has seen changes too: “To be honest with you, it's probably more negative than positive, simply because markets have always been a traditional kind of way of shopping. Older people, they say, I'm going to go to the market and get myself something. I can get it on a Saturday evening for half price. But you can't park round here, you've got to spend a fortune in a car park. In a supermarket, you can get almost anything there, park up, get it in your trolley, you're done, aren't you? It’s convenient.”
Some changes are positive - extremely long hours and very early starts seem to be a thing of the past. For example, Arthur Ramsden used to go very early to the wholesale market; now the fish is ordered over the phone and comes on haulage through the night. David admits his dad had it tougher. Brian is more optimistic about change, especially in the influx of newer communities: “Now you have every accent in every language, all the world,” he says. “And thank God because they're the ones that keep the market going. If it weren't for the people, the new influx of people that I think the market would go.” It’s certainly true that new communities keep the fish trade going. We observes many Korean, Chinese and Japanese people queuing to buy seafood. “The market has always changed,” Brian insists. ”It’s always changed. Used to be Jewish cloth, Jewish run. And then it was fruit and veg and then it was women clothes and then it was mobile phones, tablets. Now it’s food.” Jenny’s Jerk Chicken stall is a prime example of that change – and she is bringing new customers into a new part of the market.
Despite all this, and some recognition of negative changes in the market over time, there is a real affection for, and pride in, the life. ‘I like the lifestyle,’ says Pardeep. “We have a good laugh and a joke in here!” And Brian: ‘I’ve had a good living from this shop. I’ve had a good life. I love it.” The People’s History of Leeds Kirkgate Market is one of struggle, tenacity and, ultimately, optimism. The optimism that led Arthur Welham to set up his fishmongers over 100 years ago; and the optimism that keeps Jenny selling chicken to new generations of customers in the Market.