I got to trade at UCL again during freshers week 2011.Unbeknown to me, I was already trading with the organiser of the Monthly market there,John Shephered but was never invited.I put the reason down to my stall being only a recent addition to his long list of traders.I remember when Zack my neighbour at the industrial unit where I prepared my food who was already trading at his markets,passed his contact details to me. He,d said "just call him but not too often.He can be strange in his ways . Maybe you,ll get into one of his markets maybe you,ll get into all" I however did not take Zack,s advise and rang him incessantly. The poor old bloke must have thought a tornado hit him and perhaps allowed me to trade at his market in Regents Place just to stop me from ringing his phone number.
John Shephered is arguably the most important name in London Street Trading scene and has markets in prime spots like St Katherine,s dock, Canary Wharf,Victoria,Duke of York Square in Chelsea et al. Before long, he would invite me to trade at St Katherine,s dock so ,I did not want to rock the boat .I was also on the verge of loosing my stall at Greenwich market and nursing my tenderly aged son.Besides, I observed that other traders who were invited to his very busy markets had one thing in common;they were mostly very subservient indeed and asked how high ?when Mrs Shephered asked them to jump. I mention the Mrs because It was an open secret that if the Mrs took a disliking to you, You were Kaput , a gonner, your days at Shephereds markets were numbered. I decided to turn a new leaf in his markets and stifle any strong opinion I may have.I am not a shrinking violet by nature but why have an opinion and hawk great food and not get invited to his markets when other traders with less popular food than yours but who are meek do not feel the bite of the recession because they were offered more great markets than they can handle? I had a baby to feed and bills to pay.The trouble was that I neither look nor sound meek. I am one of those people whom you meet and the word FEISTY! screams at you. Anyhow, so as we were invited by him that freshers week, I sent the boyfriend to trade. The University contact for the market bought our food and enjoyed it and wondered why we did not come more often. The boyfriend does not do protocol and quickly launched into the reason he thought we were not invited to the monthly market. The boyfreind has gone and not only put our feet in it, he stirred our financial feet in it.We will now definitely get kicked out of John,s market because word will get back to him that we tried to get into UCL behind his back !I lamented the wisdom in sending the boyfriend in place of a staff to trade that day . If we were never to get another chance at this uni I might as well write the contact. So I carefully worded my email to the contact applying to trade there. Lets just say that the email did not get us in but it was the catalyst to my inclusion to trade at the new KERB run ensemble from January of 2013
During the university,s 2012 Christmas Fair some student officers approached me and offered regret that despite their efforts ,Mr Shephered had refused to invite my stall and others that they had chosen to trade at the monthly market. By now I had organised successful markets in Kingston and Highwycombe and suggested to them that I would be willing to run the market with their chosen stalls and mine.Fair game then when Media Savvy KERB got the gig.Part of the deal was that my stall and two other stalls were included in the trader line up.
So, come January, I was glad and willingly offered advice on parking, average sales, trading times and more when KERB colonels emailed and called me before the first market seeking advice.But like a festering wound, the ugly head of envy and pettiness you would not expect from an outwardly professional outfit like that, reared its ugly head. The manager of the market on the day constantly went up to the boyfriend saying "You are busy aren,t you "?The next month , I got email advising myself that I was not welcome to the market for the February event. There was no precise date for my return.In essence, I had to either curry favour with them, or be subservient in order to continue.Why were all these market organisers ego trippers and petty? I have yet again become a victim of my own success.
I had indirectly traded with KERB once during the Olympics and had applied to be on their list before UCL but that was before I became aware of the sometime percentage rule which I detest. They never approved my application and I never followed it up. Because market organising is unregulated, and majority of the traders are foreigners, traders are invariably treated with contempt by almost every market organizer. These organizers know that there is no real representative body for traders. A lot of these recession -regurgitated new breed market organizers are blatantly getting away with murder!. There really is no need for any market organizer to be ruthless. The world of street trading is fickle enough. Methinks that Markets held at university premises, should be run by scrupulous individuals with the determinant of attending stalls being how busy they are. Students decide which stalls they favour by vote if possible and the organizer is informed. It is reprehensible to remove stalls favoured by students with the ones you think they want because the busy stalls do not belong to your fraternity or the stallholders refuse to fan the organiser,s ego. UCL has produced great minds and leaders and is one of the world,s top ranked universities.Ought it continue to allow an outfit that have behaved with impunity to continue organizing its monthly market? I am happy that on the 25th of September , I went to the market and demonstrated with a lone placard,just me myself and I.To whom it may concern, I never for once believed that I was granted a perpetual right to trade at UCL but the contract with KERB is still ongoing .Why should KERB unilaterally amend or alter the terms of the contract by removing the three stalls it was told to include monthly?. And why should such a bastion of western civilisation allow such autocracy as KERB have displayed, in its university campus?
I ,thank the students who on the 25th,of September, curiously came ,inquired why I was demonstrating and enraged, signed my petition. I am inspired not defeated by my experiences at UCL and at other markets and I will now harness this experiences to set up an organization to fight the corner of the long suffering London street trader We must have good some litigation lawyers though.Hands up any offers?
