Can't say that I blame him ! We walked down the side of the Titchfield canal and the wind was so strong it was blowing the leaves on the surface in the opposite direction to the current ! Spark was really spooked by this - he clearly knew which way they should be moving and stood on the bank watching them and growling and then looking at me to see what I thought about this oddity !Ours refused to go out
Actually not too bad!
Myself and my good lady do such things. I have often placed a cold or wet bee in my cupped hands and blown warm air to revive them. Nuts I know but there you go.
That's the place. Now imagine it without the roadside railings and a very much wider paved area on the two exposed sides. The area at the left had three lines of canvas roofed stalls with walking space for shoppers. The side shown at the side shown centre of the photo had two rows all along the building, backing onto the building with the facing row backing onto the roadside. I remember the stall at the corner was Polish Joe's. He sold all manner of ex-military stuff from tools to gasmasks. The tools were top quality and bore the military emblem. Out of view to the left the road formed a triangle with the clock tower in the centre with public toilets underneath. Water pipes serving the vents urinals were polished brasswork and they were clean.
Imagine the whole interior as an open space with rows of trestle tables running front to back, encompassing the steel pillars and rows backing onto the walls all round except the entrance doorways. Suspended from the roof trusses in rows above the stalls were gas fired radiant panel heaters for use in winter. The market superintendent had a pole which reached up to the heaters to turn them on and off. There weren't any toilets but the public toilets across the road served the purpose.
There were lots of market halls like that in the North in my youth ... great start for budding entrepreneurs - the owner of Dunelm Stores started as market trader selling cloth. Preston used to have a great open sided market hall that had a market twice a week that I would always wander round when I was in the area. I used to work in my youth with a chap who sold crockery on the markets - he could balance a whole dinner service across his two arms and chest - I was the monkey who boxed it up for the buyer when he sold it. I used to do both Barnsley and Doncaster markets with him. Very busy markets both of them - people came from miles around to shop at them. Doncaster had a cattle market attached as well. Probably long gone now...
As a young man I used to take my wife to Doncaster market. It sprawled over a large outdoor area plus a couple of enclosed sections too. Polish Joe had a tool stall there as well. He covered a lot of markets around Yorkshire. Doncaster has undergone a lot of redevelopment since then and I've not been into the town centre for years. I took my Electrical Engineering HNC and the endorsements at Waterdale College of Higher Education back in the day but looking on Google Earth that site has been redeveloped too. My history is slowly disappearing.
