Market Chronicles: Leeds Kirkgate Market

We meet some of the traders at Leeds Kirkgate Market to discover what it’s like to based there in an ever-changing retail landscape.

Transcript

00:00I owned an up shop hanging in Leeds Market and my husband and I owned it for I think it's 27 years

00:06we lose track down again but I've actually been here since I was a 14 year old Saturday girl.

00:11In 2016 when this food hall first opened luckily managed to get one of the first

00:17first units here along with Ban and Me, Manjit's Kitchen. Hello my name is Stephen Myers I'm a

00:23fishmonger in Leeds Market I've been here for about 35 years and this is my shop.

00:28Obleas to go is a typical Colombian business and we have a street food from Colombia and

00:36the most typical desserts in Colombia the name is Obleas. My mum was a single parent and I liked

00:42clothes and makeup and shoes like all you know teenage girls do and she said you know if you

00:48want all those things you have to get a Saturday job and there's one going at my shop because she

00:52worked for my predecessor. It was a bit of a gamble but over the years we've just seen it

00:58slowly get busier and busier and these days it's doing really really well and it's also

01:05helped to sort of bring on other traders into other parts of the market.

01:09It's changed completely. It's a lot busier now than it used to be. We went through a period

01:16where it was quiet and as Leeds has become more cosmopolitan you know we have more variety of fish.

01:24This place becomes to the meeting point for all Latin people from Mexico to Argentina

01:31all of them are coming here and now many of the many British people are really our regular customers

01:41so it's really nice.

01:43People stand at home and do the shopping in the pyjamas you know by now one click we're all guilty of that to a certain extent

01:49but I think I'm lucky in the fact that because we've been here so long I'm literally serving customers

01:56now that I was serving when I was a young girl and I'm also serving the children of customers that I served.

02:03It's a lot different from when we first started 2016 I'd say things were on the decline a little bit

02:09but the glory days are gone but it really feels like there's been fresh injection of new traders.

02:16He's very very very old but he's very good in very good shape.

02:21Customers become friends because we've known them for that long and we know all about them

02:25and that's what it's all about coming to a market. It's good it's good that they go away fairly happy.

02:31It feels like a real old school market no pretension it's just lovely because you get to know people over time.

02:39If anybody wants to go into business and anybody's got the tenacity to say I'm going to give it a go

02:45do it do it do it do it but be prepared to work damn hard because I've never worked as hard in my life

02:52but I still get up every morning and I enjoy coming to work so I guess that says it all really.