Carry On shopping local...

“You see that old couple over there touching those big white boxer shorts?”

Myself and one of my favourite photographers, Ian Hodgkinson (The Hodge to his friends), were out in Derby’s indoor markets this lunchtime to get words and pictures for this Friday’s Food You Can Trust feature.

But our outing was fast turning into the journalistic version of a Carry On film.

The OAPs with the underwear were pointed out to us by one of the stallholders when we asked for directions to the watch shop.

Never mind such bland instructions as “follow this aisle to the end and turn right” – we were instead left trying to sidle past the elderly gentleman in question, who by this point was waving a large pair of Long Johns at his pained-looking wife.

And that was by no means the oddest comment of the morning.

The innuendos flowed thick and fast, with one flirty florist telling Hodge that she was “good at making small things grow”.
And it turned out the stallholders and customers in Derby are an amorous bunch, with both Hodge and I attracting some unexpected attention.

I inadvertently found myself being wooed by a large tattooed chap outside one of the fruit and veg stands, whose abject failure to control his wandering eyes was bordering on terrifying.

I kept sidling over to The Hodge for protection and giving him wide-eyed “save me looks”, and he kept repeatedly abandoning me to my fate and trotting off to take more photographs.

I soon got my own back though as Hodge caught the attention of a lady greengrocer, who proceeded to tell him her exact bra size (very big) and then lean over her produce saucily.

She quizzed him on whether he liked motorbikes and what car he has, at which point I burst her bubble and deflated his ego by pointing out that he drives a Ford Ka.

When we got back to our office, clutching a bag full of chocolate-coated cherries that were a gift from another stallholder, we were both bleary-eyed from laughing.

However, there was a serious point to all that capering around, and that was to promote Derby’s indoor markets, which desperately need the support of shoppers if they are to survive.

One of the things clearly illustrated by this morning’s trip was that these places have bags full of personality and the traders who run their businesses from them are really keen to have a laugh and a joke with their customers.

While we were there we witnessed a gang of youths stopping to help a little old lady on a mobility scooter who was struggling to reach a counter, a butcher dishing out a recipe as he found a customer the right cut of meat, and a general feeling of camaraderie amongst the stallholders.

Everyone seemed to know each other and we found our way to several of the stalls that we needed to photograph simply by giving another trader their first name.

The choice in the markets is brilliant, the prices are brilliant and all the traders have a brilliant background knowledge of what they’re selling, so you know exactly what you’re getting and where it came from.

And at the end of the day, when did you last come out bleary-eyed from laughing after shopping at Tesco?