A Market Legend Retires

With his yellow cords and shirt and tie, Geoffrey Sloggett was one of Totnes market’s most recognisable and much loved traders.

Now his pitch is vacant, his seat is folded and his table stowed – for after more than 30 years Geoffrey has decided to retire. Geoffrey told me: “ I was 88 in June and I’ve got a bit of a dodgy back so
it really is time to say arrividerci.” His son Roland added: “Physically it’s become too much to set up – although I wouldn’t put it past him to come up with some bags on the Gold bus!”

Geoffrey was a chartered surveyor but the love of buying and selling antiques was in the blood. His grandfather Jack Sloggett had a pawnbrokers and jewellers in Union Street in Plymouth. Roland has his own emporium in the same street today. Well known in his native city, Geoffrey was a magistrate and a councillor and part of the amateur dramatic scene.

Roland says that his dad loved the chat between the stallholders and the visitors. “He absolutely adores the banter and the bohemian nature of Totnes. It keeps him intellectually stimulated, apart from the joy of buying and selling,” Roland said. “He’s quite a gregarious person and enjoys the social side. I get the impression he was greatly loved.”

Richard Pope runs the Facebook market page where fond farewells to Geoffrey have been posted, and hopes that he may pop back for a proper send-off.

Geoffrey says he will wander back to the market for a coffee and a chat but common sense tells him it’s time to retire. “I will miss the comradeship and friendship. The atmosphere is terrific, there really is nowhere like it. “I always quote this poem – For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes not that you won or lost, but how you played the game.”