Page 38 - Market Times October 2024

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FEATURE • ALNWICK
standout food businesses including bread, and a jam and preserve stall run by Mad Jam Woman Sandy Higson, who sports bright red hair and has attracted the likes of King Charles when he was Prince of Wales and TV chef James Martin to her home-made products. She featured on James Martin’s Saturday Morning ITV show on September 21. The Yorkshire- born chef loved her strawberry jam.
“When I started running the market I knew about 50 per cent of what I needed to know, and the other 50 per cent I have learned along the way,” Tracey said.
These days the market is certainly running at 100 per cent. The traditional market days of Thursdays and Saturdays are full, with up to 40 traders and a waiting list. Tracey introduced Tuesday and Friday as additional markets in mid- summer. Tuesday is sometimes busier than Saturdays now, but Friday is quieter. Tracey thinks that is because it tends to be a changeover day for tourists on holiday in Northumberland.
“We have new traders including people from Tynemouth Market who heard that Alnwick was doing well,” Tracey said. “We are also getting more and more tourists as well as locals shopping here. We can’t make the market any bigger, but we can make its reputation bigger, so that it becomes an attraction people want to see and shop at when they visit Northumberland,” she said.
And the traders are lapping it all up. Sandy said: “Tracey is amazing. She has done a wonderful job building up the market and adding new days.”
A trained dressmaker, Sandy learned from her mother who was an excellent cook and has been making jam and selling it on markets in Northumberland for the past 30 years. She is incredibly proud to have won some prestigious awards including the Dalemain Award in Cumbria.
Graeme of Making History said Tracey
Now 80, Sandy Higson is the “Mad Jam Woman” of Alnwick Market. Her home-made jams and preserves have found favour with everyone from King Charles to James Martin, who recently interviewed her for his ITV show James Martin’s Saturday Morning (view it on ITVX,September 21 edition)
member of the committee that runs Alnwick Food Festival.
So when the planned closure was announced, she was very concerned for the traders and the gap the market would leave.
Graeme Walker, who runs a market business called Making History, remembers the day Tracey came to his stall and asked him what should be done. “I told her she would be the ideal person to run the market,” he said. The rest, as they say, is history.
“It was a whirlwind three weeks to get everything organised, but we managed to get the traders relocated into Northumberland Hall,” Tracey said. That kept the traders going and the market alive
With help from her husband, Neil, and daughter, Coral, 15, Tracey set about planning to revive the market. They started an operating company called That’s Champion Ltd, after a popular Geordie saying, and invested in more than 30 gazebos.
“Everyone has been so supportive including the traders, local businesses, the community and county council, the town
council and the Duke of Northumberland Estate,” Tracey said.
Alnwick has had a market for centuries, but in recent years it has struggled in the time when it was run by first one large private operator, then another.
“The advantage I have is that I love Alnwick and I know all the local businesses and traders, having promoted them through All About Alnwick all these years,” Tracey said.
With everyone, and particularly the traders, on side, the market soon took off after it reopened on the ancient setts in April.
“We are so lucky in Alnwick in that we have four huge tourist attractions,” Tracey said. Alnwick Castle has been immortalised as Hogwarts of Harry Potter fame. The Alnwick Garden is also a huge magnet for tourists, as is Lilidorei, a magical village of “clans” in the garden. Barter Bookshop, a secondhand book shop in the former railway station, is also a popular venue.
Tracey says the market is 70 per cent geared to tourists and the arty, crafty offer is something to behold. It also has some
Graeme Walker, pictured with his wife, Joy, has a thriving business on Alnwick market called Making History inspired by his love of history and re-enactment
A former molecular biologist who travelled Europe for work, Diane Mennim is now making a name for herself as a welder creating decorative products from old horse shoes, bicycle chains and metal bars