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Harry Capon in 1964 on his stall (Mike Petty Fenland History)36 Coronation Street
History of 36 Coronation Street
1901
Arthur Wolfe, widower, 47, publican and gardener, b Cambridge
Mary, 22, housekeeper, b Cambridge
Jane, 19, barmaid, b Cambridge
1911
Frederick C Brown, 26, agent, b Cambridge
Minnie, 25, b Cambridge
1913
William W Jones, butcher
1962
Harry Capon
24/1/1964 At 84, Harry Capon is the oldest stallholder on the Cambridge market. He sells the same type of fancy goods as when he first set up the stall at 16. “Every Monday and Saturday I get up at 5.30 and load up the trolley with the goods and pull it from my house in Coronation Street. I set the stuff out on the stall then it’s sell, sell, sell until 6pm when I start to pack up. Again another hour or so to load the trolley and then back home to bed about 9 pm. Two days a week I go up the London and the warehouses; I often get a lift with a fruitier and he leaves me at Hyde Park Corner on the way to Covent Garden”, he says., adding “The market is slowly dying … fewer people and fewer stalls” (Cambridge News)
Harry Ernest Capon was born in 1882, Palgrave, Suffolk. He married in 1921 in Ipswich and died in Cambridge, aged 93, in July 1975. In the 1911 census he was a dealer / hawker.
RAE sent this note in 2024: I remember Harry, a lovely man, and his wife, working on their stall . I worked on a stall from age 11-18 and Harry’s stall was just behind ours and it was Ted Whitehead and I remember Harry came with us to London. As he says, we dropped him off and picked him up 2 hours later; yes, at 84 he was a nimble man and very fit . When I was walking to the market at 6am I often saw him pulling his 4-wheel trolly and would help him to pull it up Petty Cury onto the marke . Later on a Saturday evening he used to shout out bargains to attract some last minute sales of a bargain; what a lovely guy he was, a real character
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