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All right, over here.
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We can't wait to go in the new building.
There's going to be a lot more natural light in there.
It'll do the meat and the fish justice, really.
We'll see it in a whole new environment.
We'll be working from behind the stalls, serving to the front.
At the minute, I have to duck and dive in between customers.
It can be a bit not very professional, really.
It'll be nice to stand on the other side of the counter
and look at some of that weight.
So we need modernising.
I mean, we landed man on the moon.
So I'm sure we can have a new fish market.
It's a very dated building.
For each day, it was very, very good for each day.
But it soon went out of fashion very quickly.
You're seeing society change now
because you're getting more supermarkets.
You're getting more malls.
You get free parking.
You can even get your car cleaned while you go shopping.
But don't say that to the boss
because he might suggest that I go and start doing that to the customers.
I must enjoy the job
because I get up at half past five every morning for six days a week.
The return that I get from the job is the customers, really.
It's not taking the money.
It's not the early hours.
It's feeling like part of the community
and being...
and mixing with different races
because you see what you see on television.
But then when you actually mix with them face to face,
it's completely different.
They're really lovely people.
You're seeing human beings to what they really are.
I don't expect life to be easier.
But when you go home, you feel satisfied
that you've done a full day job.
And also, we like to sell quality goods on there.
And people, you know, remind us of that.
Thank you for that lovely bit.
Even if it's a tiny bit of fish to a whole salmon,
that's nice to understand that, you know,
people appreciate what you're selling, really.
Why we come here to Leicester Indoor Market
is because it's very personal.
And, you know, people every week say,
see you next week.
Fresh stuff is lovely.
The thing is with Tescos and supermarkets like that,
yeah, it's good, but it's just people working there.
And I'm sure sometimes it's just a job,
which is fine, but these are professionals.
It's their living, their trade.
And it will be sad to see it go.
And it has dwindled very much over the last year or two,
since I've been coming here.
But it will be nice to see it in the new environment.
It'll be really fresh it up
and hope it brings a lot more people back
into the fresh meat market.
And we open this because there's many of Polish in this city,
Polish people, Russians, Slovakian,
who like very much our sausages, Polish meat,
and, you know, all of our products.
Yeah, so our percent of people, of course, tomorrow,
have the most, near 50% is Polish,
then 10%, 20% Slovakian and Russian.
And the rest of the percent is English
and Asian people and different nationalities.
Before our stall is out, it is now.
We didn't have a divide in war with the stall next door.
And let's say there was obviously husband, wife,
and son weren't there.
And let's say no war, so we were all open.
They'd be throwing knives and choppers at each other,
having fights.
You'd never seen anything like it in your life.
You'd think, well, I've come in to flip in Beirut.
You know, it was like that.
It was unbelievable.
You'd think, cool, you're devil.
This was in the first few years.
What have I let myself in for?
We had one chap had a round with someone in the pub,
runs behind one of the butcher's stall, picks the chopper up,
and runs out with it to, oh, you've never seen anything like it.
But that's back in, it don't happen luckily nowadays,
but that's what, you know, we had a few incidences like that.
When we first come in here, the trade was absolutely phenomenal.
It was like, you know, people, we were screaming at each other.
If we wasn't set up by sort of quarter past eight,
people would just hit us and we wouldn't get self-sorting out
the rest of the day.
You were sort of falling behind all day long.
To be fair, it's altered a lot now.
The new market, you know, the council have really gone out the way
to liaise with us, to obviously get it right,
and I think at the minute, fingers crossed,
it's going to be how our traders want it,
and it'll be a fantastic place for us.
I started the vintage tea rooms only because they had a craft store upstairs,
and everybody kept coming in asking for tea's coffees.
Well, the old people that were here, they finished,
and then they sorted out that I could just have this little section down here,
and so I did it out all vintage.
It was green and red at one stage because it was an Italian place,
so I changed it quite a shot to have it all pink and blues.
In the past, it was really good, really vibrant,
and there was lots of different people around selling different wares.
You could go from vintage clothes,
and there was somebody upstairs as well that made items for your vintage items.
So from that point, you could come into the indoor market,
and there was just something for everybody.
The reason I come to the indoor cafe is because it's a lovely place,
it's a nice atmosphere, I love the music,
and everybody's friendly.
Even when you're on your own, people talk to you,
you go to all the calves that don't,
and it's reasonable, very, very reasonable,
and that's why I look forward to coming in,
and when it does close, I'll be sorry.
I mean, it's called progress, isn't it, but it's not, you know,
not towards, it's not, you know, I mean,
I know we've got to go to the future,
but not everything to the future, you know.
It's just a shame this is going, this cafe, because this is just...
Yeah, just nice, we like the music.
Nice, we liked it, yeah.
Have a little browse around when she has the things,
like maps and stuff.
MUSIC
Yeah, one of the first came up here,
I came up here last year because I'm retired,
I wanted something to do, you know, save,
twiddling with homes at home and watching TV,
the stuff that I've collected over the years,
so I thought I'll give it a wow,
because I've always wanted to do this type of stuff, you know.
So I started last year, late last year,
and I was up on the third floor,
and it was absolutely dead, you know,
because people went up there just for the wool and the sponge.
So I moved down here with the other lads,
and it was great, you know,
because there was a clothier,
and his records, Mike obviously, Sue,
and we all had a good, good crack together, you know.
You could really have some good laughs on the old market,
and like you say, you get people up here,
not so much now, because like you say, it's a bit desolate now,
and you don't get many footballs up there.
So it started a bit of a death,
but it still, still come, still do your day's work.
This place now, where we work from the farm place,
has been here since 1976-78,
originally started by Mr Worsdal,
and then obviously he naturally retired,
and we took over,
and it's the whole, generally the whole market around here
has been a sustainable business for the majority of us.
There have been some newcomers come and gone,
but the sustainable business like the wool shop,
the net curtains, form, they've been here from day one,
and we'll still carry on trading.
Things aren't like what they used to be,
obviously with the competition that we have with the shops around,
and over the years what's changed the market in general.
But absolutely no complaint,
we would have liked this place to be where it is remaining revamped,
perhaps given chance to the youngsters at some point,
for them to be able to take on the footsteps of some of us,
but unfortunately it's not meant to be,
thanks to the mayors and their office.
What else can we say?
Personally myself, I've always been an indoor market trader,
we've supported the indoor market for well, number of years,
30, 33 years,
form place has been here for the last 36 years,
not even once maybe or day we've stood outside in the open market,
because we've always tried to build this place somehow,
promoting advertisements, banners, posters,
you name it, we've tried to market it,
and over the years we've got some very, very loyal customers,
who even up to today come up all the way to where we are,
we are in the middle of nowhere,
but we're still thriving and we'll still be in business,
no matter what happens with this building.
I inherited the business off father in about 1972,
when VAT came in, unfortunately, or 71 was it,
and I did a good 30 years outside,
and then continued the last 10 to 15 years,
well coming up 15 years in here,
and I have felt more comfortable indoors,
but it has been a really hard, really hard life,
I mean maybe lucrative at certain periods,
because it's inconsistent one year,
you can have a good year, another year can be a bad year,
we tell the revenue and they don't believe us,
but it's true, because of other elements and whatever,
but like I say, I was down here when I was 8 years old,
helping father on load and put the products out,
and I know the confectionary business is inside out,
and I know what sells and what doesn't sell.
The pick and mix is a fantastic variation,
as you can see we've got nearly 140 lines,
and the list of people basically have always backed us up on it
and kept us going, it's like the old Woolworths pick and mix really,
and we used to compete against Woolworths price wise,
and we used to win a lot of customers over,
but when Woolworths left, we went through a couple of years
where we benefited big time,
and of course we spread down south,
we went to Milton Keynes when that first opened,
and that was a terrific market when it first opened,
because they hadn't seen a lot of our products,
the old-fashioned pudges, which is what we sell,
the old-fashioned toffee, which is what our lady was just asking for,
and we hit that with an hammer, as you can see,
and it smashed it up into little pieces,
and it's very, very popular.
Wrecked your teeth, but they're not particularly bothered about that,
because they haven't got any anyway.
Well, we're optimistic about what they're going to be doing here,
obviously they're moving on to what they consider better things.
I'm just sending it into orbit with a rent,
if you know what I mean, it's a bit of a fear,
that it can be good for trading conditions,
but if it's going to be economically unviable,
then it makes it hard work for us to compete
and be in a competitive market,
and that's what would be more than anything about the future, I think.
They're talking about conditions that are like Oxford Street conditions,
and it's not really that kind of market to keep the prices low.
You need a cheap base to be able to present the products and get it over.
My name is Esther, I work at Ida's Aberdashera,
I've been here for two years.
I think the reason people come to our store is
because we're friendly, we give good prices,
it's different from just like John Lewis or just a normal shop.
We don't just sell people things,
we actually chat to people and advise them,
and that's what people like.
It's not just like you're serving someone
and you tell them how much it is and you tell them how to do it
and what they need to do and give them ideas as well.
When the indoor market just gets knocked down,
we'll be having a new outdoor stall,
a new unit on the outskirts of the market.
I think there's about three of us going into that.
I just hope it improves things
because since all this work has been going on,
a lot of people have suffered, a lot of people have left,
people that have been here years have had to go
and just hope that we can make it through
till when we get the new stall.
Yes, all I can say about the Leicester market,
it's been here over what, 700 years,
it's seen better times.
When I started to tell you the truth,
I was putting stuff on the floor, there's no stalls.
The fish market was a real fish market,
when we just had the chickens hanging up,
the rabbits hanging up, the water were coming down.
It was absolutely fantastic.
And then they built the stalls out there, the roof.
I remember the times I used to queue up to get a stall
from eight o'clock in the morning.
And if I was a bit late, I used to get a stall with a leak,
and I used to put a bucket to catch the rain.
That is the truth.
I was making about, I could make about 200 pounds in a day.
But as it stands nowadays, I'm looking to make a five pound a day.
People say I look like Dezo Canna a little bit.
What do you think?
With the Sinister stuff, projectors and cinecoms,
I mean, I'm the only one in Leicester left.
You know, Jessups and Youngs and whatever.
James, they're all closed down.
I'm on my own now, still selling this stuff.
And I've got a lot of people, a lot of students,
coming to me looking for this, looking for that,
a cine camera, a projector.
Because it's quality, they like to see the negative.
So like I say, I'm the only one left now
to keep the flag going sort of thing.
You have to have it in your blood, you have to like this sort of stuff.
You have to like it, you have to love it.
Otherwise, we're just going to get brushed off with the digital stuff
and going out the wrong way.
And that's, I think, technology is going too far.
It's making people useless.
It's making people don't want to do things.
Festival, it's all they're doing in front of them.
Come on, let's wake up.
Come back to the old systems.
That's very strawberry blueberry.
That's a lot.
That's a lot.
Only a pound, only a pound, anybody?
That's how it goes, yeah.
Since Indio Market was built,
at some time in the early 70s,
shopping habits were very different from today.
The city centre was a place to go for all your needs.
Over recent years, the footfall levels
of people coming to the Indio Market
have fallen drastically,
resulting in a decline in the number of traders
actually having a business here.
Shopping habits have changed massively forever,
with the advent of out-of-town complexes
offering free car parking seven days a week.
Online shopping, whereby the customer
does not even have to leave his house.
Over the market experience of shopping,
it does hold some of its own cards
in the battle for business.
The outdoor market, with its vast array of fresh,
inexpensive fruits and veg,
is a great draw for the populace of Leicester.
Ethnic groups mingle and rub shoulders with each other,
and enjoy the theatre of a live cosmopolitan market.
And when the new food hall is completed
in early spring 2014,
I have nothing but optimism
that Leicester retail market will flourish
for another 750 years.
Thank you.
