This Nottingham Goose Fair tradition now costs £3 a pot but it's worth every penny
"'No tinned peas ere me duck" is played on a loop next to the Traditional Mushy Pea stall at Nottingham's Goose Fair. The stall, with the green and white canopy, has been serving hot peas with a spoonful of mint sauce for donkey's years and is a firm favourite with fairgoers.
There used to be more than a dozen stalls on Forest Recreation Ground cooking peas the old-fashioned way in big metal pots over hot coals but today there's just one. There are pretenders selling them straight from a tin but they're not the real deal like those sold at the stall of Terry Burdett.
The stall changed hands a couple of years ago but Terry, 78, can't keep away from the annual event. He said: "I enjoy it. I look forward to it but I'm glad when it's gone. It's just something different, the atmosphere and the people who come year after year."
The day before the fair opened he was on-site, getting peas ready for cooking. First the dried superior marrowfat peas have to be soaked in water and soda crystals for 24 hours to make them swell.
After soaking they're cooked over hot coals behind the stall. Year after year customers flock to the stall to hand over their cash to keep up the tradition that Terry's father Alf and his friend William Pike started in 1946.
Terry was just 15 when he began helping out in 1961. He recalled: "When I first started we lived down in Hyson Green. We never had a night watchman so we had to carry all the main stuff like the buckets and churn and what we serve out of, home every day, which was Thursday, Friday and Saturday in those days.
"You weren't allowed on here in a car so we had to carry them. All the staff used to stay at my dad's house in Belper Road overnight, sleeping on the floor. When I started there were 15 pea stalls on here, all over the place, now there's only this one left. They all had fires. They taste totally different out of a can.
"My dad once went to Ilkeston to do it and they didn't sell - that's only 14 miles away. It's like jellied eels in London, would they work up here? No they wouldn't."
Before Covid the peas were £1.50 a pot. After the pandemic, Terry was forced to put the price up to £3. He admitted: "It's getting out of hand. I've just bought a new hose [for water to soak the peas] which was £180. You can't just use a garden hose because that has chemicals - it goes into the peas so it's got to be a special one that's safe for food."
There's customers who happily pay their £3 for this Nottingham institution. Others moan and say they won't be paying that. But William, who now owns the business, said there are a bunch of hidden charges that customers don't necessarily appreciate.
The ground rent, insurance, staff, coal, peas, electricity for the generator, water, soda crystals, cups, serviettes, spoons, bin bags, washing up liquid... everything has gone up in price.
"A 20kg bag of coal costs nearly £20. Yesterday it rained all day and we got through five or six bags and we took nothing. The ground rent is absolutely extortionate - I wouldn't like to start telling you about that. I have to buy special spoons. You can't use plastic anymore so you have to buy the dearer wooden ones. Then there's Fairy Liquid for washing pans out after they finish cooking. I have two lads doing that all day.
"By the time we've done everybody thinks that Mr Will and his mushy pea stall rolls up and takes a fortune but they don't see under the counter if you like. People are paying for this authentic quality product we are doing - we're not buying it off the shelf and serving it to the customers. We are hand-making these peas, other than growing them.
"You don't get that anywhere else - I've not seen it anywhere else in the world, it's very unique. So much time, and love and passion go into it. We were wet through yesterday, but over the fire it's red hot, it's like we've gone back to Victorian times but we want to keep it that way because we believe the customers need something authentic on the Goose Fair. We enjoy doing it so may it carry on."
William, a fourth-generation travelling showman, is all about authenticity. He said: "We are one of the original things on the Goose Fair, other than the old time cakewalk. People say 'this is where your grandad used to bring me' and we have little babies coming up in their prams and mums and dads trying them with the peas. Some screw their face up, some love them. It's history repeating itself over and over again and for us it's an absolute honour to bring back memories of yesteryear to our Nottingham people.
"You could sell the peas at £1 and some people would still moan. Unfortunately we are human beings and moan about everything, Socks, shoes, clothes, food, petrol, diesel... it's an ongoing thing."