Buy my Sweet Violets........

...........only tuppence a bunch - this was one of the street cries of London many years ago.

Looking at how tiny the violets are in my garden, it must have been a backbreaking job picking enough to make into bunches and enough bunches to fill the tray which was often carried on a string round their necks!!

There were many street vendors in the London streets in the 18th, 19th and early 20th Century - the ones offering violets often positioned themselves outside theatres hoping the male theatre goers would buy a bunch of violets as a corsage for their ladies.

Street traders included the mouse-trap man, the water-carriers, the knife grinder, the penny pie man, the muffin man, the egg girls, and the earthenware sellers, but there is one class of street seller who sticks even in the modern mind: the fishwife. Described even in Georgian London as ‘boisterous’, these women carried their shops on their heads on trays, and their storehouse is ordinarily Billingsgate or Ye Bridge Foot; and their habitation Turnagain Lane…They set up every morning their trade afresh. They are easily furnished; get something and spend it jovially and merrily. Five shillings a basket and a good cry are a large stock for them.’ These women were very specialized, selling either eels, herring, white fish, crabs or other small shellfish. They had no particular cry. There were and are many prints and etchings of these various traders - many very cartoon like and uncomplimentary - but one stands out - Hogarth’s shrimp girl. Even unfinished, it is one of his finest works, her vivacity and beauty captured better than a photograph.

After a wet and windy start, the weather is clearing a bit - 44 Deg F but does look as if could rain again at any time.

Hope you are having a good weekend.

My picture last year was an exquisite pale pink rose
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