BROUGH FARMERS' MARKET
OUR LAST (April) MARKET
The last Farmers’ Market was on Saturday April 19th. From early in the week, the Met Office had been forecasting strong easterly winds for the weekend, and how right they were. Our Greengrocer (outdoor) elected to leave the tarpaulin off his stall, and maybe we should have done the same for the enclosed stall used by our plants lady. Instead, we needed a rope and heavy weights at the front of the stall to stop the wind tipping it over. BUT, we are primarily an INDOOR market so the weather shouldn't matter, and as things turned out the public must have thought so too as we eventually ended with 283 visitors counted, though the higher figure should be expected since for April we had reverted to our 2 o'clock closing time.
I had omitted to say in our "Next Market" page for April that our fancy cakes stall would be missing while the stallholder was at a wedding, and a number of visitors expressed their regret at her absence. Do not despair, she will be back next month.
On the other hand two more stalls who suddenly discovered "force of circumstances" problems had arranged for other stall holders who lived near them to pick their stock and bring it to the market while a stand-in sold for them. All this was done by presenting us with the solution, not the problem. We are very grateful to all the stall holders involved who were determined not to let down their loyal customers.
At the last minute, our "regular" cheese stall said they were no longer coming, and once again the "temporary" stall not only jumped into the breach but will in future be our regular cheese stall. His wide range of small-producer cheeses is very popular. Although not strictly within the letter of compliance with certification, we display a notice to inform our customers of this, and is, we believe very much within the spirit of farmers' markets.
Once again we welcomed our local potter with his very impressive display. He MUST have gone home with a slight profit on the day, since we bought enough goods from him to pay his stall fee twice over! He will be back again in the second half of the year.
Brough Post Office is one of those threatened with closure. It does extra business on Market Saturdays, and towards the end of the April Market a number of stallholders assembled with the Market organisers for a protest photograph. Thankyou all.