Dennis Gould and his amazing wares

Helena heard from Ron C. that other stall holders from the Shambles Indoor market were being allowed to set up outdoor stalls in the adjacent Church Street car park.  We decided to go and do a recce to check whether we might be able to join in there in future. A part of the car park is being roped off for the market and we found several colleagues already trading. Roy, one of the longest serving stallholders, greeted us warmly and said he was doing quite good business, probably twice as busy as the first market held last Saturday.

Kirsty also said she was glad to be back in business as were several others, including an artists selling cards of her paintings. There was a mix of both the indoor market traders as well as some who trade outdoors all year round. As there is more space for keeping distances up between people and traders the car park may well be a good  venue for some time to come. Helena went to speak to Ken, a cheese seller, who is the manager of the various traders, and he said that from nest Saturday we could have a stall each with space for our car beside us, a perfect solution in case of rain.

One of the first stalls we had come across was this famous one run by Dennis Gould. He is a noted character about town, for both his activism as a life long peace campaigner (and long is the operative word), book seller and traditional letter press printer. He designs and prints countless articles, posters and poems. I forgot to mention that he was one of the original ‘Riff Raff’ poets and still performs, though much less frequently. Helena has often been asked to read her poetry with them.

it was great to see him looking well. He told me he has hardly changed his lifestyle at all since Covid appeared. He goes to his print workshop after meeting fellow Riff Raff, Jeff Cloves for coffee and breakfast every morning. Then cycles to his allotment in the Golden Valley and possibly cycles up the Slad Valley, where he would traditionally imbibe fine local ales at The Woolpack, though it is closed at the moment.

I’m adding a couple of links to other blips of Dennis, where I've previously written more about his amazing life 

The Apple Spirit 

Dennis Gould at home