Bury St Edmunds market trader Eric, dies aged 88

Tributes have been paid to a popular Bury St Edmunds market fruiterer who has died.

Eric Hart, who sold fruit, vegetables and flowers on his stall for around 40 years, died on May 1, aged 88.

Pam, Eric’s wife, said he had moved from East London to Bury when he was 12 and they met at a youth club.

She said: “He started working on the market outside the Post Office when he was about 17 or 18, I worked there as a telegraphist on the second floor.

“He was immensely knowledgeable about flowers, he had the biggest stall on the market at one point and on Mother’s Day and Easter people used to queue up to buy from him.”

Eric also had a shop in Brentgovel Street and Abbeygate Street, a warehouse in Hatter Street, where he used to ripen green bananas on their stalks, as well as taking his stall to Haverhill and King’s Lynn markets.

A family stall has been on the market for nearly 100 years – Eric’s father, Lou Hart , started trading in the 1920s and now Eric’s son, Martin, and grandson, Henry, run one.

Martin said: “I started working on here with dad when I was 16 in 1975, everybody in the town knew him, he was a very well known character, and even though he retired at 58, up until about four years ago he would still stand at the end of the stall.

“He was a good worker and a good grafter. The fruit game has given me a good life and it gave him a good life.”

Eric was a big fan of a range of sports, including cricket, tennis, horse racing and billiards and played snooker for a team at the Constitutional Club, in Guildhall Street.

Martin said: “Even when he was in hospital, before he died, he was asking how the snooker was going,

“He would also get up in the early hours to listen to cricket test matches and one-dayers on the radio.”

Fred Lawrence, who works on the Hazel Nurseries flower stall, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, with his son and grandson, has been on the market since 1958 and once had a stall next to Eric.

He said: “Eric was a very funny guy, I liked him, he was just a likeable man and had the best stall on the market.

“We used to call him ‘Banana King’ because of how many he sold.”

Eric’s funeral service will be held at St Edmunds Chapel, West Suffolk Crematorium, Risby, on Thursday, at 11am.

There will be family flowers only, but donations can be given to Stroke Association.