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Flower Seller on High Street in Sheffield City Centre


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Flower Seller Sheffield High Street.jpg

 

Here's something really special

 
A flower seller outside where Walshes/Rackhams/TJ Hughes was on High Street.

This was taken in 1947 when the building was still badly damaged from the Blitz

Photo courtesy of Elaine Goddard who has a wealth of images like this and we hope very much she continues to share them with us lucky Sheffielders!

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Most likely Primroses as a small posy for Mum or Girlfriend ( or even wife)??? The building was, more or less, just a hole in the ground in 1947 having sustained considerable damage during the Blitz and was awaiting  demolition ( by Jimmy Childs I think) and reconstruction ... when planning, cash and resources permitted. He is wearing  the then typical cheap working mans trousers produced from Melton cloth which seldom kept a crease and no doubt bought from his clothing coupon allowance. His shoes/boots show signs of being cobbled and were something not to be readily discarded ...as today's throw away society does!

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Here's another flower seller who we used to have in Fargate, his name was Joe, does anyone remember him?

My brother did a portrait of him after seeing this newspaper cutting of him in a local newspaper.

 

The Fargate flower seller 1.jpg

The Fargate flower seller 2.JPG

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What a splendid portrait!

In the early 1980s the Roebuck on Charles Street would sometimes see one old guy with a box of flowers from the Wholesalers selling them to the lunchtime trade. 

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I remember two flower sellers that stood under the underpass which goes from Angel Street to the Dove and rainbow pub. I think they were Father and Son but cannot be sure. I used to buy a bunch of flowers for my wife every Saturday 1980 ish. Does anyone remember these guys?

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my gran was a flower seller down the market near The Queens Pub, where  she invariably ended up. I can remember pushing wire through the rose bud heads and putting them in a flower box. We then had to put these on the bus under the stairs for her. If you didnt do it right, she had a pretty handy walking stick, which would help you to remember how to do it  properly

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It is very pleasing to report that because of this item in SHF my long lost cousin and I have been re-united after over 60 years. Thank you very much to all concerned in these postings. 

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On 13/03/2018 at 12:26, Sheffield History said:

Flower Seller Sheffield High Street.jpg

 

Here's something really special

 
A flower seller outside where Walshes/Rackhams/TJ Hughes was on High Street.

This was taken in 1947 when the building was still badly damaged from the Blitz

Photo courtesy of Elaine Goddard who has a wealth of images like this and we hope very much she continues to share them with us lucky Sheffielders!

This may have been my father's uncle, Joe (Joseph) France  (not sure of that surname) who was one of a family of hawkers who mostly sold flowers they bought from Artindales in Sheaf Market. His sister (or at least I think that was the relationship) Martha, my grandmother, had her own pitch half way down Dixon Lane as related elsewhere on this topic. George France sold The Star at Moorhead outside The Grapes. If that picture IS Joe France, the last time I saw him he was somewhat older and living in a terraced house near the bottom of Foxhill Road, Wadsley Bridge. Martha was killed in 1960 by a hit and run driver whilst crossing East Bank Road and George died in poverty in Coleridge Ward at Fir Vale Infirmary.  If, as The Star picture caption above suggests, the flower wholesalers gave flowers to the hawkers for free I would be vey surprised. But even if they were not free they would have charged very little for them,  so enabling these people who had no other means to earn a sparse living. I doubt that would happen these days. 

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