Sharing happy memories of St Helens' covered market

Alan Whalley kept St Helens smiling over four decades as he served up a magic menu of larger than life characters and nuggets of nostalgia every week with his sublime storytelling skill.

Alan passed away last October, but we’re sure he’d be tickled pink to know his award winning words were making a timely comeback to the Star’s pages to inject a little cheer in these days of unprecedented darkness and tragedy and. 

• This week’s piece shares some memories of the former St Helens covered market and some of the folk who worked there. If you have been enjoying these pieces from the archives then the Star would be delighted to hear from you.

We’ve already had plenty of feedback from readers. If you would like to contact us please email: news@sthelensstar.co.uk
The newsroom remains closed at present, so unfortunately we are not collecting written correspondence.

IT was a draughty, finger-freezing life, dishing out the spuds, beef, lino and pots and pans during harsh winter months.

But the folk who once worked amid that huddle of busy stalls, crammed into the old St Helens covered market, still look back on those hard times with a mixture of pride and affection.

Two of them have now rolled back the years to the heyday of that vanished glass-roofed market place (nicknamed The Shambles) in response to my recent memory-jerking flashback photo.

This prominently featured the old Lennons stall with its huge sides of bacon dangling above the doorway and fresh fish displayed on a slab outside. Hygiene regulations seem to have been quite relaxed in those far-off times.

And now, two ladies who once worked there – alongside manager Mr Murphy, a man whose formidable appearance hid a kind heart – treat us to a peep back in time.

Veronica McNicholas, of Clock Face, who has now sadly gone blind, was thrilled to learn from her hubby, George that a picture of that Lennons stall of fond memory had been prominently featured on this page. And after his description of the white-aproned man standing, arms-folded in front of the stall, she was convinced that this was none other than manager Murphy...“a perfect gentleman.”

Another former shop assistant, V.P. of Toll Bar (she didn’t wish to have her full identity disclosed) says that the flashback photo “took me winging back almost 60 years.” But, sadly, her happy recollections are clouded by just one deeply moving factor.

 “At weekends we were always open late, up to 10pm. The thing I remember most is the small group of poverty-stricken people who used to wait by the stall right up to the end of the night. They were hoping that Mr Murphy would throw in a few bones or sell off his left-over meat cheaply.”

They were hard times, says VP, but Christmas was great. “The stall was hung with turkeys and geese, and we didn’t need refrigerators, because the market was quite cold enough! The fruit stalls were festooned with tinsel which glittered in the swinging lights and the atmosphere was charged with excitement.”

It was because of her constantly-frozen feet and hands that VP reluctantly turned her back on market life and sought a fresh career.
VP explains that she had then just left school and begun work at Lennons’ offices in Corporation Street. The firm had several outlets locally and also owned the high-class Stringfellows store at the top of Bridge Street.

“But their market stall was always the busiest, and as a junior I used to help out there when they were short-staffed. I loved the excitement of that busy market with all its different sights and smells and the friendliness of the traders there.” So much so that she ended up working there full-time.

“It was a different world – and how did we stand the cold? With the covered market open at both ends the wind just whistled through...and the Lennons stall was right at the front, opposite the Market Hotel.” Provisions were stacked to the left, while the meat and bacon section, run by the formidable Mr Murphy, was on the right.

“I can see him now, a big man with a fierce exterior but with a heart of gold.”
His ritual was unvarying. On arrival in the morning, he’d cut up lumps of bacon and skin the rabbits.

"After setting out the marble slabs and scrubbing down his wooden table, he’d don a white apron, put on his cap and light his pipe. “He was then ready for a busy day’s trading.”

And there was no pre-packaging in those days. Everything had to be weighed . . . tea, sugar, flour and the pats of butter cut from huge slabs.

“It was all very time-consuming, especially with customers watching very carefully to make sure they got the correct weight, or hopefully even a little bit over,” recalls VP.

“Wartime rationing made things especially hard, particularly for those living alone. Half a pound of sugar and two ounces of butter didn’t go very far.”
Wartime inspectors were always about, checking the scales and clearing litter.

“When I look back, I wonder where we put everything, because storage space was almost nil.”

And VP adds: “That flashback picture filled me with nostalgia. It was a time when we knew all our customers by name – and most of their ailments, too!

"It’s something that we do not get today in our efficient but impersonal supermarkets.”

Veronica McNicholas also recalled manager Murphy with affection. “In cold weather he wore a flat cap which he doffed to every customer.” 

The only other male on Lennons’ stall was a delivery boy (name forgotten) who pedalled a bike with a big basket at the front.

Veronica lost contact with Mr Murphy when she was transferred to Lennons’ Liverpool Road shop (now site of the GPO sorting office). It was company policy to switch staff from shop to shop.

And they’d plenty to go at. For Veronica recalls that Lennons had premises in Gladstone Street, at Peasley Cross, in Liverpool Road and Naylor street. In addition, they owned Stringfellows (on a site now occupied by H. Samuels, the jewellers) two Empire Stores (one near the Bulls Head, Parr, and the other in Claughton Street, now occupied by the Charcoal Grill); then there was their store in Peckers Hill Road, Sutton, and yet another in the same block as the famous Alma’s Cafe at Fingerpost.

It was a thoroughly family firm with the brother directors always addressed by their Christian names prefixed by ‘Mister’ (Mr Terence, Mr Dennis, Mr Norman). “All three were good to work for,” Veronica recalls.

This article was first published in Whalley’s World 1998