Nottingham's most opinionated greengrocers on their best gigs of the year, The Park Estate and the origins of 'ay up me duck'
Best gig
This year we haven’t seen much, which is disappointing really. We did say, ‘Are we too old for this game?’ But when you get there – no, you’re not. We saw Torvill and Dean, and we saw Dean Z doing Elvis at the Arena. It was very professionally done, not tacky. He could wiggle and do all the moves. We were going to see The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, but we couldn’t as we had a delivery of oranges the next day. But last time we saw them it was fantastic. They had the drum set at an angle at the side so he could prance around genuflecting all over the place.
Ay up me duck
We’d say it’s ‘ay up’ not ‘ey up’. We also quite like ‘innit’. And ‘owt or nowt’. It’s not complicated dialogue. We said to someone in the shop ‘do you want owt or nowt’ and they said, ‘What are you talking about?’. Well they should know. Is ‘ay up’ from Notts? Well they say Robin Hood is really from Yorkshire way, but Sherwood Forest would have gone quite high up wouldn’t it. Clumber Park is twenty mile up the road. To be on horseback to get to Nottingham Castle you must have been on your knees.
The Park Estate
It’s fantastic isn’t it. If you can afford to live there, live there. Lots of it is flats now, but you can imagine a hundred years ago it being a gorgeous family home. It’s very leafy. And you’ve got the squash club, the tennis club, the boules club, and Newcastle Circus is a bit of park. It’s a bit creepy at night with the gas light though. We were delivering there a couple of years and we couldn’t find which way to go.
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