Trading Standards
Getting up at 6.30am, we begin the day bleary-eyed but optimistic. Before heading down to Brixton, we have to pick up all the tools of our trade from Katy’s studio, and visit the post office to retrieve an all-important envelope that we believe contains our precious Market Traders ID cards. After waiting in the sorting office for half an hour, Katy discovers that the envelope has mysteriously been re-entered into the postal system and is in a postman’s bag somewhere in Hackney.
Frustrated and late, we begin our drive south, and get ensnarled in the morning rush hour. Finally we arrive at the Brixton Market office, and after quite a lot of sighing and humphing, the gentleman at the desk says that we can go ahead with our stall. But then he asks if we received a message about the Assistant’s papers. It takes me a minute to remember that’s me – Katy registered as a trader and I am her assistant. After three weeks of form-filling, phone calls, and pestering Lambeth Council, it is only now that they tell me I was supposed to present them with various forms of identification before my application can be processed. So I am told that I am strictly not allowed to trade. I ask if I can hang out at the stall and he says yes… but NO trading.
The next challenge is getting a stall set up, which involves finding someone called George, who piles various bits of metal scaffold onto a cronky old cart and then assembles them on our pitch next to Stuart the Watchman. We begin to set up our stall, excited to see it finally coming together. As we lay out the empty pots Katy asks – where’s the salt? And we realise we have left it back in Hackney. So Katy embarks on a two hour trek back across the city whilst I guard the stall, hoping that no-one official uncovers me as an illegitimate assistant. The Market officials who do come along are more concerned that we use accurate scales to weigh out the salt correctly than about checking my status.
By lunchtime, we are finally ready with our currency of Darling Memory Preservation Salts, and various strange pieces of recording equipment. Our Latin American neighbours feed us coffee and empanadas, and Stuart gives us lots of useful advice on how to improve our stall aesthetically and practically. And although it feels slow, we end up having a series of very interesting and occasionally bizarre conversations, and collect seven stories in exchange for salt. We hear memories of jasmine-scented courtyards in Damascus, a navigationally deft two year old riding a donkey in Jamaica, the man who used to guard the market at night and scare off thieving pigeons and a Nigerian healer whose powers have passed through the generations.
Finally at 5.30pm, we pack up our stall and trundle our wares back to Hackney through yet more (never-ending) traffic.
It’s been a long day.
