ABSTRACT
Down at the ‘Chinese end’ of the Produce Market discussed in the previous chapter, old Uncle Tony fills us in on some of the history of the Sydney markets, having himself started work in the old Haymarket in 1938, before moving to the Produce Market in the 1970s. Unlike the Chinese-dominated market of today (see Chapter 8), Haymarket then was ‘Italian. Italian. Italian. After Italian, the Maltese’ (Uncle Tony, interview, September 21, 2012). Here Uncle Tony charts one of those slow patterns of change from the earlier Italian role in the fruit and vegetable businesses to the Maltese, and the fact that such markets have nearly always had such mixes. He recalls that they used to sell to small businesses who sold their goods from a horse and cart: ‘They bought from Haymarket in their little, little, horse cart – one horse with a cart – and all the fruit in the back, you know.’
