peter
“I’m the 4th generation of my family to sell fruit and vegetables on this street. I’ve grown up and lived all my life here, so it’s like my second home. I love talking to people, and I’d even miss it when I’m on holiday. It used to be much tougher, though. I remember when I was 9 I used to work the weekends with my mother. Back then we sold fish as well, and although there was a man who supplied us with fruit and vegetables, he didn’t supply the fish. We had to get up at 5am and go to the fish market on Chancery Street. We didn’t have a van, or even a horse; only those dodgy three-wheeled basket carts. My mother used to walk in front and I’d be behind her pushing the baskets. The roads weren’t smooth either, they were all cobblestones. And I remember so vividly one morning, we were already back late from the market, walking close to Capel Street Bridge, when the wheel of my basket fell off and all the fish fell out onto the road. We were trying to get the wheel back and collect all the fish from the road when a policeman came along and, you’re not gonna believe this, gave my mother a summons. I was only a child then, you know? But I felt deeply hurt by him. And it stuck with me for life. Especially when my mother was just after burying my father! I don’t think about it as much anymore, plus that Garda is probably dead and buried now himself anyway.”