Transcript: Miss Marjorie Tebb remembers the Chinese hawkers in Liverpool

Description

Miss Marjorie Tebb was born in 1920 and [media]interviewed in 1986 for the 'Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900 to 1960.' Here Miss Tebb remembers one of the Chinese hawkers who sold their wares door-to-door in Liverpool in the early twentieth century.

Transcript

INTERVIEWER: Do you recall any Chinese in the area?

MARJORIE: Oh yes, yes. The Chinese used to come around with a vegetable cart; used to come around twice a week. They had a big vegetable garden out the back of Prestons out there, and he used to come. He had the scales on this spring cart and the horse. And he'd come in: 'Anytink today ladee?' he'd say, 'Anytink today ladee?' He'd always give me a piece of fruit or something.

INTERVIEWER: Can you recall his name?

MARJORIE: Oh we always used to call him 'Charlie', and he always had the pigtail and it was done up under his hat because he'd go back to China to die. And they couldn't go back if they didn't have the pigtail.

INTERVIEWER: What sort of hat did he wear?

MARJORIE: A little round cap.

INTERVIEWER: He didn't wear a bamboo one?

MARJORIE: No. [1]

References

Catherine Johnson (ed). Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900–1960 (Liverpool: Liverpool City Council, 1986). http://mylibrary.liverpool.nsw.gov.au/Electronicbooks/Lookingbackatliverpoolanoralhistory-1900-1960.pdf

Notes