I recall the Open Market well, as my mother used to purchase all our fresh comestibles (ie. just about our entire food intake other than bread and cereals) there each Saturday. We would carry our purchases out to the nearby bus stop and take the 26 trolleybus up the short steep incline of Ditchling Road to alight at St Saviour's.

One very clear memory was of a stall which stood out like a sore thumb among the Open Market's veg, butchery and fish stalls. This was the "blind man's toy stall". I can't remember the name of the blind man, but he sold all manner of inexpensive plastic toys, mostly labelled "Made in Japan" at a time when all Japanese imports were regarded with derision as cheap junk (which most of them then were). Of course, this was before the era of Honda, Sony, Yamaha, Pioneer and all the other superb precision product manufacturers from that country!

If anyone knows more about the blind man and his stall, certainly an Open Market institution, I'd be interested to hear.

I have a photograph of one of the original stalls that was in the Level. It was run by Frank Parrett my uncle.