Market trader packs up after 40 years

A well-known market trader is packing up his stall after 40 years in business.

Mick Broadgate, from Madeley, Staffordshire, is a familiar face at Penkridge Market, and became a bit of a local celebrity after posting novelty videos on social media during the pandemic, dressed in an array of costumes from Mrs Doubtfire to Boris Johnson.

He has been trading there twice a week for the past four decades and will retire on Saturday.

"It's going to be sad but it's going to be a new chapter for me, so I'm looking forward to that," he said.

"It's been a really tough decision, my wife's been asking me for a while, she said: 'You gotta do it, we're not going to have any time together.'

"I'm going to sort of wean myself off it," he said. "I'm going to go back and do the odd day when I feel like it, just when I fancy, only for a couple of months - to get over it."

"I'll miss the social side for one, that is massive in my life, you get to meet people every day," he told BBC Radio Stoke.

"There's a lot of lonely people who come round the market just for a chat.

"I'll miss the banter with other traders, we've had so much fun over the years."

He said that this Easter would be his first time taking the occasion off in four years.

"I come from a family of market traders, me and my brother are a bit like Del Boy and Rodney," he said.

He started out by selling curtain and bedding fabrics by the yard.

"About 15 years into that in the early 1990s, the whole trade changed because nobody was sewing."

"I moved into bedding, and just never looked back from there, really."

Looking ahead to his last official day, he said it would be very emotional.

"I think they've got something planned to be honest… I hope I don't lose it, I don't think I will."

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