Christmas at Joseph’s
Cats, junk, pies and knitwear
Thirty-odd years ago, if you took a short train ride west from my hometown, you would find — almost as soon as you stepped off the platform — an indoor flea market. Or maybe you’d call it an antique market? Either way, we just called it Joseph’s Market.
It lived in the shaky skin of a bomb-damaged townhouse, whose Victorian form had been folded like Welsh origami into a hundred merchant’s nooks, a jumble of shadowy dens full of esoteric, mind-blowingly useless treasure. These dim spaces were linked by black, groaning stairways — some dumpy and short, some stretched and narrow as pencils — and all grumbling and swaying underfoot. Once through its low entrance, there was no hint as to where you were among its inner alleys, strips and squares, basements or attics. The lumpy, maroon-painted walls seemed to heave like a lung as you stumbled through the clotted air, around the junk-stuffed cabinets and busily laid tables, and past the pale, toothless vendors, sucking on thermos cups and staring at their raggedy cats in the gloom.
In the last few years of the 1980s, I plucked many items from its musty belly. But I wasn’t there for the trinkets and bells, the vinyl or the tin soldiers. My ‘look’ at the time (such as it was) drew from the quiffs and desert boots of The Smiths, and the block-black and dark plaid of William and Jim Reid. To pull that off, I obviously needed some pretty fucking intense cardigans. Aran. Heavy. Used and pre-rocked. With moody buttons.
In contrast to my requirement for sullen knitwear, I also collected kids’ comics and old books. All of these things I could find in the enchanted guts of Joseph’s Market.
And Joseph’s was especially magical at Christmas time.
Then, the usual smells of patchouli, mothballs and coughing would be layered with the aromas of spiced cake, sweet booze and well-rolled joints. The pitch-dark recesses would be laced with vintage fairy lights, and the bowed ceilings would be lowered further by droopy webs of homemade paper chains. The loose banisters on the iffy stairs were draped with sticky pine garlands, and the vendors’ lairs jangled with gaudy baubles as their badly wired electric heaters blazed a risky orange welcome to all but the fire warden.
Every stall had a radio, and at Christmas, they would all be tuned to different stations. Crooning standards swirled lazily around jingly pop and church choirs as you wafted dreamily around in the intense seasonality of it all. Here and there, you could find (if you looked) gold-rimmed crockery tumbling with fat mince pies, and indecently curvy glasses of cheap sherry arranged on squiggly silver trays with price tags tied to their knobbly handles. Whispers of ‘Help yerself’ came from the dusty mouths of crusty vendors in Father Christmas hats, and of course, we would indulge. Repeatedly.
On Christmas Eve, everyone inside was warm and drunk by elevenses and asleep under the mistletoe with a tinseled cat by noon. I remember trying (in a haze of sherry and pies) to buy books from a seller in the cellar. He was curled up in a stained, green-velvet armchair and dribbling softly into his yellow beard as choristers lulled him from the radio with songs of saviours and donkeys. A sign on his blanketed lap read, ‘Please pay the bad-tempered feline.’ This I did, before stealing a doze (and another pie) in the next stained chair.
Urban myth has it that this ambiance was just psychedelic theatre, cleverly designed by and for those who enjoyed the occasional chemically assisted excursion to another reality. While I didn’t understand the reference at the time, I knew that any visit would be darkly illuminating, terrifyingly banal and mystifyingly familiar. It was only 20 miles from my home and was one of the most exotic planets I could imagine.
None of the ‘characterful’ markets I’ve visited since has ever matched the charm or mystery of Joseph’s, although a series of books and movies about a certain boy wizard did actually come close to some of its imagery now and again.
Today, many miles and years away from Joseph’s Market, I found myself working alone and late by lamplight to the sound of Christmas carols. I switched on the tree lights and saw snow swirling at the window.
I fastened an extra button on my cardigan, looked at the deep, comforting shadows of my home, and thought of Joseph’s.
Many thanks once again for spending a few minutes in my world.
Have a happy and peaceful holiday season.
And if you’re reading this in July, please let us know why, because that’s quite odd and we’re all very curious.
