I was walking down Soho Market in London one day. I never knew there was such thing as I never walked down that road before. It was a small cute road with few stalls. Apparently, it used to be big with many people walking down and many food and fashion stalls, but because of a construction, there were only few stalls out here, and the rumor is the Westminster City Council is trying to kill it. Luckily people are fighting for the history the market. And we had a chance to interview one about their passion and dream.
According to Berwick Street London website, its market is one of the capital’s oldest. They suggest street trading started in the 1770s, but it hasn’t been officially recognized as a market till 1892. This is a video from 1964 and you can see how busy the street was.
Move forward to present, Berwick St Market became a destination with restaurants such as Sub Cult, Freebird Burritos and Duck and Rice. However, even with its independence for 300 years, the government decided to privatize the market with no consultation with the vendors and it’s all happening behind the scenes. And the government is trying to terminated the shop owner without any warning.
Trying to Keep Berwick Street Market is My Passion Right Now
I met a guy in Berwick Street Market in London, UK. He was an ad agency executive before started a farmer’s market. He visited Uganda while he was working at the agency and realized that the other side of the chain wasn’t treated equally and fair. It wasn’t what he believed in, and realized that ad agency wasn’t right for him. So he left and started his own milk market and now he is trying to save the market in Soho against all these big development and government. FYI. You can help the people at Berwick Market by signing a petition here.
Sometimes you fail and sometimes you succeed
While we were chatting he said passion would be
Something that he could not stop himself from doing
And his dream would be
Freedom
He believes that people should build a sustainable and ethical business rather than killing it. It should keep its local culture and history. However, work at an ad agency was really stressful, working days and nights where you don’t get paid much. And if you work and work, you will finally work it out after three to four month. But that is when you understand what you are actually doing because working at an ad agency is more complicated than we think.
You can check out the interview below!