A trader with a stall for 50 years shares collection of market photos
DO YOU recognise any of the faces from these fantastic photos of Loughborough Market, sent into Looking Back by a trader who has had a stall on the market for 50 years?
Mr Roger Boon, 70, from Mountsorrel has been selling hosiery on the market for the last 50 years and has brought in some old photos of the market he has found.
Roger said that his family used to have haberdashery shops in Biggin Street in Loughborough, one in Coalville and one in Shelthorpe.
He said that ‘Boons’ was the name of the family shop and that he still gets people coming up to him in the market saying that they remember his mother and father’s shop.
Roger said that his father, Norman Boon, used to run a mobile library in Loughborough, and would take books door to door across the town, and would know what each and every reader would want.
He said: “My dad would take a tray of books into each house, and would know what they liked, whether it was Westerns or war books.”
Roger said that this then gave his mother (Alice) and father the idea of selling the unused and unwanted books from the library on the market, and that is where it all began.
Roger said that he used to help his parents out on the market from the age of 10.
He said his parents market stall then progressed into selling kids colouring books after the war, and then into toys, and then knitting wool, and then that progressed into selling stockings and socks.
Roger said that his family then opened a shop at the indoor market in The Rushes, selling wool and haberdashery, and then they were handed the golden opportunity to open a shop in Biggin Street, which is where the shop was most popular.
He said that in Biggin Street, ‘Boons’ had two floors and used to sell haberdashery and knitting wool.
Roger said that after he came back from the Merchant Navy when he was 20, he then started working on the market stall for his father again, before he bought his fathers stall off him when he was 30 and has worked on it ever since.
Roger said that his parents’ shop in Biggin Street had been shut for a long time, but he never had any interest in the shop and always just wanted to work on the market because he loved speaking to people and loved the buzz of the place.
Roger still has his stall in the market now.
Do you know Roger? Or do you remember his parents store in Loughborough? Maybe you used to buy your knitting wool or thimbles from the store? Or do you recognise any of the faces in the photos he sent in? Or even have your own old photos of the market?
If you do, please contact Liam Coleman on 01509 635806 or email liam. coleman@trinitymirror.com