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.

Click here to watch a film of Bob's last day in the Market 

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 employment law that stipulated employees had to be 18 years old in order 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 really.”

Bob ‘Bacon’

ANF Bacon was the next business Bob joined and the Bob Bacon nickname stuck. “I spent years at Bacon as a porter, unloading moss, foliage and Christmas trees," he says. "When I was 18, I got my porters’ badge and I felt very proud. My wages went up from £4 per week to £16 per week plus tips, so it made a HUGE difference to my pay.”

After 11 years working with ANF Bacon, circumstances changed, and Bob found himself made redundant in 1981. “Because I was under 26 years old, I only got half a week’s wages for each year that I’d worked with them, so basically nothing really. But I’d had lots of fun there and loved every minute, so there were no hard feelings.”

Bob didn’t stay out of work for long and was snapped up by Baker & Duguid. “I did a short spell with them as a night porter, got married in 1983, then went to work for Dutch firm Warmerdam as a salesman. The job was a lot slower than what I was used to before as a porter, so I ended up going back to portering - I just wasn’t cut out to be a salesman in those days.”

After another stint as a porter, Bob was offered another selling role at Universal by an old friend called Joe London. “Joe guided me through what was required in the selling role, but the timing was wrong for the business, and I was made redundant again. I got picked up by a guy called Lenny Skeen and started working with an old fella called Bert who had been in the army. Bert helped me a lot as he was in his last few months at the market and wanted to pass on his knowledge and skills.”

The gift of the gab

Bob quickly excelled in his new sales role and was able to sell almost anything to anyone thanks to his gift of the gab. “I once sold cyathiums that were three weeks old, when they’re only supposed to be a couple of days old! My customer really needed then and – even though I explained how old the flowers were, they still took ‘em. A friend of mine who owned a flower business on Chelsea’s Sloane Square was flabbergasted! We’ve stayed friends all these years and they’re now based on the King’s Road opposite Peter Jones: they still buy all their flowers from New Covent Garden.”

From car washer to night porter

After the Skeens business collapsed, Bob stayed in the Flower Market but in a different guise. “I was washing cars in the Market’s car park to pay my bills. My wife had given up working to have my daughter Hayley, so I needed to keep the money coming in and the car washing fitted the bill.”

As luck would have it, Bob’s spell washing cars led to a new opportunity. “Roy Stevens from SR Allen came down to the car park and asked me to leave what I was doing and come and work with him. He knew that I was a grafter and a willing pair of hands. I was lucky that I’d lodged my union card and had kept paying my union fees, so I went straight to work for Roy as a Flower Market night porter.” Bob spent the next 20 years as a night porter with SR Allen, a time that he looks back on fondly despite the unusual hours. “We’d start at 10:30pm and work through to 7am the next morning, Monday to Friday.”

For the first time in his Covent Garden career, Bob started working Saturdays in addition to the usual Monday to Friday routine, as demand from the public grew. “There was a lot of debate back then about whether the Market should open on a Saturday as it was an unknown risk for the businesses. Now Saturdays are one of our busiest days! It was a good little earner and I ended up taking my family to Disneyland in America off the back of working all those weekends.”

It was the start of a new decade in 2010 that saw another big shift in Bob’s career as the threat of redundancy loomed its head for a third time. “There was a big recession and unfortunately SR Allen had to make me redundant as their business went under,” explains Bob. “The generation of regular customers just filtered out and, as the trade faded, so did the business. But what a great team we were at SR Allen!”

Flowers and plants - just like any other consumer product - have a lifespan and rise and fall in popularity but Bob’s been in the business long enough to ride the ups and downs. “The trick to longevity is to employ young people”, explains Bob. “If you’ve got young people in your team who are on the pulse then you’ll have a successful business!”

From pet cemetery to L Mills

Once again, Bob was seeking employment, and it didn’t take long for his services to be snapped up. “I kept showing my face in the Market and did a few part-time ‘turns’ here and there for different Flower Market businesses. Then I got offered a full-time role in a pet cemetery. It paid the bills for a while, but it was very different to what I was used to and I didn’t really enjoy it. After one particularly hard week I put that job to rest and never went back.”

What had turned Bob’s head was a chance to return to the Market, working for plant business L Mills – a job that unbeknownst to him would be his role until he retired. “I’m eternally grateful to wholesalers Tony and Carole, who told me that Billy Chev was looking for someone to work with him at L Mills as a salesman. I started working with Billy three days a week at first, spending the rest of my week as a landscape gardener. Eventually I started working full time and in 2016 – when Billy left – I started running the show on my own. Billy gave me the confidence to run the business and although it’s hard being a one-man band, I’ve really enjoyed it. The job satisfaction is amazing. I have to say a huge thank you to Iain Mills for bringing me into his business and to all the great workers down at L Mills nursery for all their support.”

The end of an era

Bob’s retirement brought about the end of an era for both himself and L Mills, which had been in the Market for more than 100 years and will continue to sell its produce via Market wholesalers Pratley’s and Quality Plants. “What I’ve learned from my time in the Market is that if you work hard, you can make money, and if you’re really lucky you can even find love,” says Bob. “But time is only allotted and now it’s my time!”

It goes without saying that there were so many great times in Bob’s fifty-plus years in the flower business, but naming the highlights comes easily. “Where do I start? The football teams, the boxing nights out, the nightclubs, the river boat shuffles, the Market parties and all the misbehaving! I’ve loved every minute of it.”

Bob’s final month working at New Covent Garden saw a new youngster start in the Flower Market, across the way from L Mills. Whether Bob saw his younger self reflected back or just wanted to offer some friendly advice gained over half a decade, his competitive spirit was still front and centre. “He was going on about how old I am, so I challenged him to an arm wrestle the other day – when I beat him he was really shocked,” says Bob. “That’s the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit, but wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato into a fruit salad!”

Retirement plans

Bob has plenty of ideas for how he’s going to spend his retirement: “I’m so used to working night shifts for the past 50 years that it’ll take some getting used to. When the Flower Market was closed during the Covid lockdown, I kept my regimen going, working out, gardening, and keeping healthy.” Putting aside the jokes and smiles that Bob’s well known for, he reveals that his retirement aims will see him divide his time between keeping fit, astronomy, and seeing more of his grandchildren.

“I’m planning on starting at night school,” he jokes, “to learn how to sleep like everyone else! Plus I’ll be doing a bit of skydiving too. It’s always been a long-standing ambition of mine to jump out of a plane.”

On behalf of Bob’s many friends, colleagues and customers, thanks for being such a huge part of New Covent Garden Market. You’ll be missed – the very best of luck from us all, Bob!