MICHAEL MANGOLD

Paddington Markets – Text and Photographs Michael Mangold

After the excesses of Friday nights most Sydney suburbs are usually slow to wake from their slumber. Paddington is slightly different because many of the ragers there live very close to where the raging takes place. The cafes lining Oxford Street open early like inner-city clinics for outpatients in need of caffeine, mineral water and pastries. Across the road in the grounds surrounding Paddington Uniting Church and Paddington Public School a team of dedicated stallholders begins setting up an open air market which has had a major role in pumping life into Saturdays in Paddington for decades.

The idea for the markets was conceived in 1970 but 1973 has been identified as the year in which Paddington Markets began breathing a life independent up early and more embryonic stages related to fetes, cakes stalls and what we would describe today as garage sales.

The year 1973 was an important one for Australia. Gough Whitlam had just been elected Prime Minister, reforms in education, the arts and the environment were put into action immediately. Bob Hawke became President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), Patrick White won a Nobel Prize for Literature, the Sydney Opera House opened, the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS) opened, Blue Poles a painting by Jackson Pollock was purchased by The National Gallery of Australia for $1.3 million, a music festival at Sunbury on the outskirts of Melbourne ran for three days and the Aquarius Festival at Nimbin in northern New South Wales attracted hippies from all over Australia. Many of them settled there permanently.

Overseas a ceasefire ended the direct involvement of United States ground troops in Vietnam and in the Middle East the Arab-Israeli conflict erupted in the Yom Kippur War. It was followed soon after by the Arab Oil Crisis which overnight slowed traffic in the western world, especially in the United States. The apparently endless flow of energy and natural resources fuelling economic development suddenly became finite. The world became a smaller more fragile place.

Against the backdrop of global doubt a church and a community set about creating an urban village built on the human values of dignity, cooperation, sharing, creativity, enterprise and understanding. Anyone doubting the value of the sixties and seventies will find the story of Paddington Markets reassuring.

Note: footnotes [shown in square brackets] can be found at the end of this page

Published in 1993 by Tandem Productions Proprietary limited
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Mangold, Michael 
Paddington Bazaar
ISBN 0 646 155199
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

An urban village within a metropolis

“We have opened a place of some promise. A small society has been formed and a good sabbath school established.”  Australian district of the British Wesleyan conference of 1847 [1]

“We must implement the program of the The Village Church or perish. There is no alternative.” Reverend Peter Holden, August 1971 [2]

“It's a church without walls and a dogma without restrictions.” Reverend Rod Pattenden, May 1993 [3]

Paddington Markets began as The Village Bazaar which had its origins in the struggle between a straightlaced church wanting to throw off its old fashioned clothes and a series of youthfully determined ministers keen to accelerate the process.

The first of the four reverends was a young visionary, 35 year old Peter Holden, who took up his appointment in 1970 at what was then the Methodist Church on Oxford Street in Paddington.

Peter arrived fresh from his experience the previous year in the United States where he had been a member of the organising staff of Woodstock one of the greatest festivals of youth culture in history. It was flower power and people power celebrating music and art in the name of a new society. [4]

Peter's years of postgraduate study in New York between 1966 and 1969 had also given him qualifications in urban studies and urban sociology which became important elements in the impact he was to have at Paddington.

When he returned to Australia and moved to Paddington he found himself surrounded by people who like himself had discovered it was possible to live close together cooperatively.

Peter began to focus his thinking sharply on the relationship between church and community. He drew much of his inspiration from the Middle Ages when the role of the church was pivotal in culture and learning.

The sixties had seen the emergence of mass media guru Marshall McLuhan and his concept of the global village but for Peter Holden it was “the urban village, an enclave within a metropolis” that was fascinating. [5]

In the early 1970s young upwardly mobile professionals were already moving into Paddington alongside pensioners and working class people who had lived there all their lives.

The migration to Paddington of artistic people was also well underway. These were not necessarily people with money but people with a sense of community and the desire to express it through graphic art, photography, film, dance and theatre. At the same time the area was also attracting university students who tended to be politically active.

“I don't really know what galvanised all that as a community and it's probably a bit romantic to say that it was galvanised. But what did happen was that Paddington developed an identity for itself and everyone called it Paddo.” [6]

Peter began to draw on the many different elements from the community around him to assist him in a process of change. A community clinic conducted by Dr Neville Yeomans of St. Vincent's Hospital, in the vestry behind the church, offered Peter Holden the substance and imagery for the revitalisation he was after. Other health related services such as massage, naturopathy and acupuncture were later added to create the Village Healing Centre. Childcare facilities already established at neighbouring St. John's Presbyterian Church also became part of the community services offered.

The church hall itself was converted into The Village Theatre with the help of another kindred spirit, professional director and actor Barry Donnelly. Plays by Australian playwrights such as Kevin Gilbert were performed as well as those of overseas writers and plays developed in workshops by amateur writers and actors in the hall.

Peter also attacked what he saw as negative symbols and barriers to greater contact between the church and the wider community. He rid the churchyard of cars whose owners paid fees to park there and began lobbying for the closure of Newcombe Street.

“The car is an alien thing in Paddington and I saw a churchyard full of cars as a bigger barrier between the church and the community than any fence.”  [7]

Is not hard to imagine the controversy Peter Holden’s actions generated from more conservative forces within the Paddington congregation, the Paddington community, and the hierarchy of the Methodist Church itself.

He was already developing a strong media profile through appearances on the Christian Television Association programs and ABC Radio. But nothing compared to the eruption which followed the staging of Sam Shepard’s La Turista in the church hall in June 1971.

FOWL PLAY AT THE VILLAGE THEATRE! screamed the headline on page 3 of the Thursday June 3, 1971 edition of the Sydney afternoon tabloid The Daily Mirror. La Turista was directed by Barry Donnelly who also acted in the play. Among the other cast members were John Clayton, Lex Marinos and Paul Bertram. The performance involved the ritual slaughter of two live chickens on stage.

The slaughter of the chickens was part of the play’s objective to confront the audience with the realities of life beyond the comfort zone of the middle class establishment. The chickens themselves were dispatched quickly and cleanly “in one swift chop” [8] exactly as they would have been in a poultry processing plant.

Nevertheless the RSPCA reacted angrily with a court injunction to prevent what it saw as “needless killing being turned into entertainment.” [9] A carefully worded statement describing the play’s objectives replaced the slaughter scene in subsequent performances.

In August 1971 Peter formalised his vision for a revitalised church and community in a document known as The Purple Book because of the colour of its cover. Titled The Village Church - A model for ministry in Paddington in the ‘70s, it is a manifesto for community values in Paddington which became, and to a large extent continues to be a reality.

The third last page of The Purple Book includes the suggestion of a market as a possible new source of income to support the changes envisaged without having to sell off or extensively redevelop the church’s property.

“Using the Church grounds as a marketplace for Church agencies to sell used clothing etc. and for stalls to be rented to individuals to sell flowers, leather goods, crafts etc. It is estimated that three hundred dollars per week would be an average gross income from this project.” [10]

Having drawn up the blueprint for The Village Bazaar at Paddington, Peter Holden now needed ‘a builder’. “I felt that actually getting something started was as much as I could do. It needed somebody to put it on  a more regular footing.” [11]

“In the Methodist Church in those days, nobody ever interfered in a recruitment process. It was all done by the act of God, by the Methodist Conference, but of course I manipulated it.”  [12]

Following Reverend Russell Davies’ appointment to Paddington Methodist Church in January 1972, Peter Holden made a strategic withdrawal to a new appointment at Bondi Junction. Peter remained the administrator for Paddington Church and related closely with his successor. *

Russell Davies’ Yorkshire determination and sense of humour came in handy from the very beginning of his appointment to Paddington.

“In my first week the doorbell rang very late one night. I dragged myself out of bed and went downstairs in my pyjamas and open the door to this flash looking blonde in a tight skirt. She said in a deep voice, “I've got a real problem.” [13]

The person Russell opened the door to was Bill a cross-dresser who had no money to get home and was frightened of being picked up by the police and put in a cell. Russell duly pulled a boiler suit over his pyjamas and drove Bill to his parents’ home in Mosman.

It was then that Russel realised he did not have toll money for the return journey across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Bill refused to wake his parents because they had never seen him in drag and Russell was left to find his own way back via toll-free Gladesville Bridge in the early hours of the morning.

Russell Davies faced many surprises and challenges in his five years at Paddington. However during most of that time he also had the advantage of a hiatus in the power of the church hierarchy as the Presbyterian, Congregationalist and Methodist Churches, merged to become the Uniting Church.

He pushed ahead with plans for The Village Bazaar by submitting a building development application to the Sydney City Council. Even before Peter Holden put forward the idea in The Purple Book it had been clear that “there was a market for a market”. [14] The success of small Saturday stalls, run from time to time by various community groups, including Scots College of Bellevue Hill and the Paddington Methodist Church itself, was obvious.

The application to Council involved proposals for paving the area around the church and constructing a timber pergola along the length of the wall facing Newcombe Street. Approval was granted but when permission was sought to close Newcombe Street temporarily for the staging of a series of ethnic festivals on the first Saturday of each month it was flatly refused. The Council also demanded that trading at the weekly The Village Bazaar cease.

Council’s main objection related to opposition from Paddington retailers on Oxford Street. Strong opposition from residents, who objected to the noise and parking problems they felt were caused by the bazaar, added further weight to the stand taken by the Council.

The Village Church responded by joining the Paddington Chamber of Commerce and arranging parking behind what was then the AG Campbell Wholesale Grocer warehouse facing Newcombe Street.

The Principal of Paddington Public School at the time also gave permission for the school grounds to be used for parking on Saturdays. A residents’ group countered with objections voiced through the school’s Parents and Citizens (P&C) group.

Sydney City Council issued a written ultimatum stating that the bazaar would be forcibly closed down on a designated date. The threat was met with a superb piece of brinkmanship by Russell Davies. “I phoned them up and said, ‘Could you let us know what time you're coming please? We’d really like two hours notice if you could. We can get the newspapers  and radio stations here in twenty minutes but it will take us two hours to get television crews across the Bridge. We are going to make as much of a media stink as we can.’ They never came!” [15]

Another community initiatives attracting unwanted attention was a progressive school called Guriganya which had sprung up in Paddington on the Woollahra Council side of Oxford Street. Guriganya was a school which like many others of its kind of the time placed an absolute premium on freedom and self-expression.

When Woollahra Council moved to close down Guriganya on health grounds, the children and their teachers fled across the Oxford Street border into the safe hands of the The Village Church. The school moved into the church hall along with The Village Healing Centre and “all the other things” which included classes in yoga, ballet, acting, French cooking, and first aid. [16]

Russell Davies recalls the Gariganya school scene in the church Hall as one of “absolutely delightful mayhem”. [17] However it was not long before the noise of the young inhabitants began to disturb Dr Neville Yeomans, and his mental health patients in the vestry nearby, to the point where Russell Davies had to take action. A meeting with the parents, teachers and children was called.

“There they were in glorious technicolour. I went in and it was clear that a heavy-handed approach was not going to work with these hippies. So I said, “Hey man we want peace and love and you are going to have to be quieter and more considerate of these people.” They looked at me like I was some kind of alien. Then one of the young long-haired hippie teachers stood up and said, “What the Rev is trying to tell you is that if you don't stop fighting, this bloody great gargoyle is going to fly over the church and come down and piss all over you!” [18]

Sharing and tolerance were the foundation stones for the diverse activities of The Village Church.

Even so, alternative medicine was in its infancy in Australia when Acupuncture Colleges of Australia approached the church to lease the unoccupied Presbyterian manse for premises. Russell Davies was dispatched by his Parish Council to check the bona fides of the College by enrolling in a six week introductory course. Russell eventually completed the full diploma course in acupuncture.

In another wonderful demonstration of tolerance The Village Church was also to become the place of worship of two additional and radically different congregations. In 1974 a large section of the local Greek Orthodox congregation at Darlinghurst was exiled from its church as a result of factionalism created by differing attitudes to Greece’s military junta.

Russell Davies sympathised with the Greek worshippers who numbered almost 400 and gave them access to the church from 7am to 10am on Sunday mornings for their own services. The arrangement was for six months; it continued for almost eight years.

A gay congregation, The Metropolitan Community Church founded in America, which also had a stall at the bazaar, was the next to seek help from the The Village Church as a place of worship. They, like the Greeks, offered to buy the church but settled for a sharing arrangement which enabled them to conduct their services on Sunday nights.

The Festival of Light led by Reverend Fred Nile in the hierarchy of the Methodist Church immediately began to exert pressure to force the gay congregation from the church. In typical style Russell Davies took advantage of the state of flux created by the Uniting Church merger.

He neutralised complaints from the Methodist hierarchy by pointing out that his church was operating as a joint parish under new procedures with responsibility to a Parish Council. The move to form the Uniting Church had also provided a strong ally in the Reverend Rex Matthews who had been appointed to the Woollahra Congregational Church in 1974.

Russell Davies and Rex Matthews embodied a partnership which did much to realise and consolidate the vision Peter holding had described in The Purple Book. Russell and Rex were both fine communicators. Rex brought with him the benefits of a knockabout career which included engineering, colonial administration in New Guinea, missionary work in Nauru, and journalism.

Publishing had an important role in promoting the activities of The Village Church, including The Village Bazaar. The Village Vitals and The Village Vanguard were two of the church's newsletters at the time and The Village Voice was a newspaper distributed door to door at one stage throughout Paddington.

Having survived early challenges to its existence The Village Bazaar began to grow steadily into Paddington Markets, a permanent feature on the Saturday morning landscape of inner city Paddington.

A more formal charter for the allocation of stalls was drawn up to preserve the integrity of the original aims of The Village Bazaar to support the local community. Goods sold were not allowed to be in competition with local shops in the emphasis was firmly in favour of handmade goods produced in cottage Industries by the stallholders themselves.

The tradition of theatre which began with Barry Donnelly and The Village Theatre had also continued. While the original Nimrod theatre, one of the theatres at the forefront of the revival of live theatre in Sydney during the seventies, was being converted from stables to a theatre, John Bell staged his famous productions of Hamlet in the church Hall. Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was among those in the audience on opening night.

In the years after the fall of the Whitlam Government, Juni Morosi, her husband David Ditchburn, and Dr Jim Cairns, former Deputy Prime Minister and the first Treasurer in the Whitlam Government, founded the Down To Earth movement using the church Hall almost as an inner city base for a commune. Alternative more natural foods and meals were prepared there and it became a meeting place where organic farming techniques, mudbrick housing, and simpler more natural ways of living with high on the agenda.

The Down To Earth movement was closely associated with the hippies who had settled on the Far North Coast of New South Wales at Nimbin after the Aquarius Festival staged there in 1973. The Down To Earth movement held its own festivals including one at Bredbo, south of Canberra, in 1977.

Hippies in transit from Nimbin often returned to Paddington and sought refuge in the church's community facilities and a place to sleep in the church hall. At one stage a Clydesdale horse by the name of ‘Esroh’ (horse spelt backwards) which had travelled down from Nimbin was stabled along with its cart in the church grounds. Children at The Village Bazaar on Saturdays were given rides on Esroh during his stay.

The sexual revolution that provided the sixties and seventies with much of their spark and youthful challenge to the establishment and also brought couples together in relationships based much more on mutual discovery. The Village Bazaar offered them the chance to work together in ways that broke the stereotypical gender roles of the mother and housewife and the husband provider.

Opportunities, particularly for mothers who might otherwise be isolated from any type of economic activity, we're also opened up because arts, crafts, fashion and jewellery could be produced at home in cottage Industries during the week and then be profitably marketed at The Village Bazaar on Saturdays.

In subsequent years the tradition of handing skills such as woodworking, metalworking, gold and silversmithing, blacksmithing, candle making, pottery, and sewing from one generation to the next built up at the bazaar. The involvement of whole families in enterprises centred on the bazaar also became one of its many positive social functions.

Disadvantaged groups and special interest groups including charities and those related to the environment were encouraged. During the week that the church hall was turned into a training workshop for the unemployed who were taught to make crafts which they could then sell at the bazaar. 

Provision was also made for casual stallholders with an established track record to graduate to permanency as positions became available. The appointment of staff included casual positions for unemployed people at the bazaar on Saturdays, a policy which has continued to the present day.

The low cost of setting up an enterprise at what became Paddington Markets as it is known today, opened the way for fantastic developments in fashion and crafts with an impact that has been sustained. The proximity of the markets to design and fashion schools stimulated ambition and professionalism.

High fashion priestess Lizzie Collins speaks fondly from her boutique in the Queen Victoria Building (QVB) of her days at Paddington Markets, Reverend Rex Matthews officiated at her wedding.

”I remember crawling through the door one Saturday morning and begging the general manager on my hands and knees for a permanent stall. I was pulling on his jeans and he was laughing, he had to laugh it was so funny, and I said “Please, please, you just have to give me a permanent stall.” And he did!” [19]

“I worked at the markets the day I got married. I was so used to working at the markets on Saturdays I didn’t know what else to do.” [20]

The big names in Australian fashion who started with stalls at Paddington Markets include Studibaker Hawk (Janelle Smith, David Miles and Wendy Arnold), Black Vanity (Stephanie Meares) Lisa Ho, Von Troska (Traudl Von Troska), Mary Shackman, Status Symbol (Kathy McKinnon and Jeffrey Oley), Third Millenium (Claire Dickson-Smith) and Zimmermann (Nicky and Simone).

Dinosaur Designs was started at Paddington Markets by Stephen Ormandy, Liane Rossler and Louise Olsen. Others with strong connections to Paddington Markets include ROX (Bruce Kaldor), Robert Clerc, and John and Lissy Hablitschek.

Within the first years of operation Paddington Markets injected so much life into the commercial heart of Paddington that any resistance from Oxford Street retailers quickly melted. The process of turning Paddington into a boutique paradise for food and fashion was underway.

However the surge in the growth of Paddington Markets only served to harden resident groups in their opposition and fury over noise and parking problems. But the markets were  unstoppable. 

The closing of Newcombe Street towards the end of 1973 and the creation of a mall helped with traffic problems and opened a venue for more music and entertainment. Sitars and guitars bathed the markets with sounds characteristic of the sixties and seventies.  Street theatre and mime performed by groups such as the White Company added to the feeling sixties hippie happening at the markets.
During the summer of 1976 regular Sunday afternoon forums were held in the church hall. “We had some fairly biting topics and some very good speakers including a wide variety of academics,” Russell Davies said. [21]

By the time the Uniting Church officially came into existence in June 1977 the growth of Paddington Markets and its importance as a source of funding for the church was already making the task of managing it quite complex. The partnership of Rex Matthews and Russell Davies ** also ended with Russell taking on the full-time role of editor of the newly formed Uniting Church’s first newspaper.

As Paddington Uniting Church’s inaugural minister Rex Matthews maintained a team approach with The Village Community Centre with regard to policies concerning the administration of Paddington Markets.

“The Village Community Centre committee comprised representatives from each of the organisations which used any of the church property. Its weekly meetings were held every Friday morning at 7am so the members could attend before work.” [22]

The evolution of The Village Church into The Village Community Centre began with Russell Davies but gathered considerably greater momentum with Rex Matthews at the wheel. The mechanics of the whole operation became more and more complex and made the task of communicating the connection between the spiritual values of individual activities and the theology of the Uniting Church much harder.

The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) for example produced two films on the ‘Uniting Church experiment at Paddington’ in 1978; A Meeting Place produced for a program called Weekend Magazine, shown on ABC TV after the evening news on Sundays, explored the concept of The Community Church with curiosity and sympathy. “The church has tried to become a community centre in every conceivable way and the church officials believe they had succeeded in establishing an unprecedented level of community involvement.” [23]

A Walk On The Eastside was produced by the ABC’s Religion Department for screening in the Four Corners time slot during the program’s end of year break. It focused a much more critical eye on the markets and surrounding activities involving the church. “I would have thought that anybody from the normal suburban parish who came very close to what was going on here, would either be shocked or repelled. That's what I mean when I'm talking about other parts of the church, perhaps having reasons to be suspicious or mystified or critical of what was going on.” [24]

Opinions on The Village Community Centre inside and outside the parish, the Uniting Church, and the wider community polarised in subsequent years turn the point of  schism after Rex Matthews moved on to a new appointment in 1985

In his eight years as the Uniting Church minister in Paddington Rex Matthews put his foot on the accelerator in a concerted effort to institutionalise his vision of “the church as the centre of the community” in which the markets inevitably had a pivotal role because of its capacity to draw people and generate income. [25]

He renegotiated parking arrangements with OTC (Overseas Telecommunications Commission) later merged with Telecom (now Telstra) who now owned what had previously been the AG Campbell carpark. Adequate parking for stallholders was as ever critical to the future of the markets.

Having solved the immediate parking problem Rex Matthews then invited Paddington Public School to enter a partnership in which they would receive the bulk of fees from school space rented to stallholders.

“It meant we were able to give a little more space between stalls in the church grounds. We never realised the markets were going to get to a point where the whole school yard would be packed out with stalls.” [26]

Clearly the markets and many of the other activities emanating from the church had taken on a life of their own. When Reverend Rod Pattenden and his wife Reverend Kerry Pattenden jointly took over from Rex Matthews✳✳✳ at Paddington in 1985 an entirely new phase in the parish opened.

The sharing of parish duties between two Reverends married to each other seemed to embody the type of variation in convention Paddington by now expected.

Within two weeks of arriving to take up their appointment Rod and Kerry received documents from South Sydney Council, which now had responsibility for the church side of Oxford Street, informing them the markets were illegal and had to be closed down.

The case was eventually settled in the Land and Environment Court in favour of Paddington Markets. The real battle of coexisting with hostel neighbours is unlikely ever to end. Rod Pattenden in particular has borne the brunt of at times very personal abuse.

As the church moved to assert more direct control over its property in Paddington and the markets there was inevitable and sometimes bitter conflict with the committee of The Village Community Centre.

Members of The Village Community Centre such as Acupuncture Colleges of Australia, the Village Healing and Growth Centre, and the Caretaker’s Cottage Youth Refuge founded and coordinated by Laurie Matthews [27], re-established themselves independently at various city locations. 

And what of the stallholders themselves and the practicalities of preparing and operating an open air still each and every Saturday? There is no doubt that whatever the commercial benefits of the markets to stallholders shed community values are its mainstay.

They are not values derived from sense of serving Paddington or latent Christian beliefs. They come from the margin of freedom and independence to make things and sell things directly to other people in a way that benefits both parties without being onerous to either. It is a fundamental social contract and conscious sharing of values.

The experience of moving through the markets is also intensely human. “You feel, you touch, you bump, you have to work your way through the maze and that is part of the enjoyment, the adventure of what you'll find around the next little corner.” [31]

Paddington Markets have grown from a handful of stalls to 250 stalls with up to 100 would-be stallholders on standby wanting to earn money just for the day or hoping to gain a toehold in the absence of a regular casual or permanent stallholder.

The rules and policy for stallholders in terms of conduct and agreements as to the goods they have permission to sell have been refined and restated over the years. Although the intent behind them has changed little, their importance to the identity of Paddington Markets has grown dramatically.

The originality and talent displayed is nurtured as a matter of policy by the markets. It is true to say that the markets market themselves but it is not  something which happens accidentally. The skills of people such as Assistant Manager John Canny in recognising and encouraging the work of casual stallholders trying my luck for the first time is an essential element in keeping the markets dynamic.

John Canny was himself involved in running a stall from the early years of the markets until quite recently went after a period of voluntary work on behalf of the Stallholders Association he took on a management role.

“We have developed a formal system of assessing stallholders’ stock, giving them credit for regularity of attendance, and quotas so we don't go overboard on any particular type of goods.” [32]

The management of the markets has also been streamlined to replace an earlier system relying on management by committee. Peter Townley who has been General Manager of Paddington Markets since 1998 was an outsider recruited specifically for the job. Previous managers tended to be recruited from within the markets.

Peter Townley has a strong background in commercial theatre and film including financial management and investment. His affable European manner in moving around the markets to maintain personal contact the stallholders is matched with the firm control he exercises in administration and decision making in the office during the week and especially on Saturdays.

Paddington Markets stallholders are highly representative of Australia's multicultural mix and not frightened to fight for their rights on Saturdays when time and space are at a premium. Serious dispute however a few and far between.

The Stallholders Association has taken on many aspects of the consultative process between stallholders and management which what part of the previous process of management by committee. “The biggest problem in a market like this is rumours and the Stallholders Association can say, “This is what is really happening.” [33]

The Stallholders Association has a regular newsletter and organises the Annual Stallholders Ball as well as being involved in promotional campaigns including special events at the markets.

Stallholders themselves are impossible to classify but they do share written and unwritten commitments to the markets and their customers and a high degree of tolerance. They are openly and publicly on display and need enormous tenacity to deal with the practicalities of setting up and stocking their stalls in all seasons and all types of weather. They also need to be alert to changing customer tastes.

Major sports events and other special events at the Sydney Football Stadium, the Sydney Cricket Ground and facilities in the Moore Park area bordering Paddington can dramatically dampen the sales of stallholders at the markets by displacing parking normally used by the customers.

The advent of longer shopping hours in mainstream retailing, competition from other community and commercial open-air markets, and increasing leisure time choices for people have all had an impact on Paddington Markets. Other developments such as the growth in the number of international tourists visiting Australia in recent years have helped to offset some of these effects. 

Whatever the difficulties the diversity and  creativity displayed at Paddington Markets each Saturday are clearly very attractive to people of all generations and persuasions.

The markets are a place where even the famous can be part of the crowd. Jeremy Irons, Susannah York, Britt Ekland, Rod Stewart, Brooke Shields, Bob Hawke, Clive James, Peter Weir, Greg Chappell, Wendy Matthews, Maggie tabberer, Wendy Harmer, Leo Schofield, Bruce Petty, Marcia Hines and her daughter Jenny, and many others have been visitors and customers at Paddington Markets, some of them come in quite regularly.

The endless procession on Saturdays of traffic and pedestrians back and forth across and along Oxford Street is that its most intense in front of the markets. The resistance from shopkeepers in the early days of the markets is now impossible to contemplate.

The energy and vibrancy of Paddington and it's mainstream retailers however, still rely on the sense of opportunity and surprise Paddington Markets offer.

It is the markets which make it possible for all comers to have the chance to test their talent in a marketplace where money is not the gatekeeper. Above all else and in spite of its enormous growth and commercial success Paddington Markets are a showcase for human values.

Footnotes

1 & 2 pages 1 and 44 respectively from Reverend Peter J. Holden The Village Church – A model for ministry in Paddington in the ‘70s, August 1971.

3 page 18 Reverend Rod Pattenden interviewed by Michael Mangold, May 1993.

4 Woodstock the Summer of Our Lives by Jack Curry Weidenfeld & Nicolson, New York 1989.

5, 6 & 7 pages 2, 4 & 5 respectively from Reverend Peter J. Holden interviewed by Michael Mangold, June 1993.

8 & 9 page 3 Daily Telegraph, June 3, 1971.

10 page 46 Reverend Peter J. Holden The Village Church – A model for ministry in Paddington in the ‘70s, August 1971. 

11 & 12 pages 9 & 12 respectively from Reverend Peter J. Holden interviewed by Michael Mangold, June 1993.

13 page 1 Reverend Russell Davies and Noel Davies interviewed by Michael Mangold, Part 2, June 1993.

14, 16, 17 & 18 pages 6, 5, 4 respectively from Reverend Russell Davies and Noel Davies interviewed by Michael Mangold, May 1993.

15 page 3 Reverend Russell Davies and Noel Davies interviewed by MichaelMangold, Part 1, June 1993.

19 & 20 pages 7 & 8 respectively from Lizzie Collins interviewed by Sharon Wilcox, July 1993.

21 page 14 Reverend Russell Davies and Noel Davies interviewed by Michael Mangold, Part 1, June 1993. 

22 Letter to Michael Mangold from Reverend Rex Matthews, 17 August 1993.

23 Narrator of A Meeting Place produced by ABC TV, 1978, page 3 of transcription.

24 Narrator of Walk On The Eastside produced by ABC TV, 1978, page 10 of transcription.

25 Reverend Rex Matthews, Walk On The Eastside produced by ABC TV, 1978 page 1 of transcription.

26 & 27 pages 8 and 5 respectively from Reverend Rex Matthews interviewed by Michael mangold, June 1993. Reverend Rex Matthews’ sons Colin, Laurie and Peter, and daughter Rhonda, worked in various capacities at the markets from the time they were teenagers.

28 page 2 Eastside Community Centre Paddington brochure.

29, 30 & 31 pages 9, 13 & 12 respectively from Reverend Rod Pattenden interviewed by Michael Mangold, May 1993. 

32 page 4 John Canny Assistant Manager Paddington Markets interviewed with General Manager Peter Townley by Michael Mangold, June 1992.

33 page 4 Paddington Markets stallholder and former Stallholder Association Committee President Peter Thomas interviewed by Michael Mangold, June 1993.

* After directing the Australian Council of Churches overseas aid program and its program for refugees for over 7 years Reverend Peter J. Holden is currently Program Director with the Ecumenical Coalition on Third World Tourism based in Bangkok.

** Reverend Russell Davies is Minister for the Marrickville Parish of the Uniting Church.

*** Reverend Rex Matthews has retired after being Chaplain at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and the Children's Hospital at Camperdown.

References 

Chronicle of Australia edited by John Ross, published by Chronicle Australasia, Australia, 1993.

The People's Chronology by James Trager, published by Aurum Press, Great Britain, 1992.

Woodstock The Summer Of Our Lives by Jack Curry, published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, USA, 1989.

Technical details

Cameras: Nikon F4, Canon F1 and Widelux F7.

Film: Black and White Ilford FP4 HP5 and XP2. Colour: Kodachrome 64 and Fujichrome 100. 

Processing: Black and White processing and prints Chris Kane B&W Lab, Cammeray NSW. Colour processing Vision Graphics, Crows Nest, NSW. 

All photographs have been reproduced full frame.