Known to many of his Flower Market colleagues as 'Bob Bacon' – not for his love of pork-based products, but because he once worked for ANF Bacon – Bob has been" a mainstay" of the Flower Market since he first joined the old Covent Garden in 1971 before the move to Nine Elms in 1974.
As well as the aforementioned ANF Bacon, which became G.B Foliage, and final employer L Mills, Bob worked for Blackburns (part of the Donovan Group), Baker & Duguid, Skeens, and Dutch business Warmerdam. "In all I've completed 53 years in the Flower Market," says Bob, "and I've loved every minute of it. It's a sad goodbye to some good friends, but I'm ready for a change. This is the third stage of my life story – I've been to school, been to work, and now I'm starting a new chapter with my retirement."
A connection to Dickens
It was 12 April 1971 when Bob started working at the old Covent Garden Flower Market for a firm called Blackburns, part of the Donovan group. "We were based in a former publishing house that once had Charles Dickens on its books," says Bob, who can remember all the small details of his first few weeks, despite five decades having passed. "Back then I only weighed eight stone," he adds, "but I quickly put on muscle as I was running up and down four flights of stairs each day carrying heavy boxes. In a few months to a year, I was up to 10 stone and full of muscles from all the lifting and running around."
A few months later that same year, the Conservative government changed the law – and the makeup of the Market – by bringing in an employment law that stipulated employees had to be 18 years old to work night shifts. "I reckon I was probably one of the last porters employed at 16 as I joined the Market a few months before the law went into effect," says Bob. "It was a stroke of luck."
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