As well as fun, love and romance, there were a fair few tears in the Flower Market on Valentine’s Day, as Market legend Graeme Diplock, Director of Green & Bloom Flowers, said his goodbyes after 38 years in the Market. We asked Graeme to look back at his long and successful career.

Lets's start at the start. What was your route into a career in flower wholesaling?

I was born in Gravesend and left school to become a conditional jockey (jumps). My mum and dad weren’t too happy, as they had to pay for me to leave! To cut a long story short though, I got quite badly injured in a couple of falls when I was 18, riding a horse owned by a man called George Harmer. He suggested that I got out of that game and I went to work for his brother, on their flower stall in Holborn.

I was also engaged to George’s daughter at the time and over the first six months, worked with the family and got to know the flower trade and New Covent Garden Flower Market. I’d go with them to the Market and to functions and meet suppliers and customers. I loved the banter and the atmosphere from the very start and just wanted to get into the Market as soon as I could.

George had a firm called Newtons and he worked at Fyffes Monro, which was where I started in the Market in 1986. I came in as a buck, which basically meant I did any job going. I progressed quite quickly though and was assistant manager in two years and manager in three. Page Monro bought Fyffes out and decided to let some of the staff go – George amongst them. I was loyal to George – he was like my dad, mentor, tutor and friend rolled into one, so when he set up his own company I went to work with him again. His name was George Bernard Harmer and I’ll never forgive him for naming the firm GBH Flowers! It was only him and me and we had some great times, but eventually it ran into a few problems.

Around 1992, that wound up and George left the Market. I went to work for John Hardcastle and David Gibbs at Eurosales. I was there for another three or four years, then left to work for Bob Palmer at AW Carey in 1997. I left there under a bit of a cloud in 2002, having made a big mistake, for which I have always held my hands up.

But it was that which led me to open up Zest Flowers in the Market, and I had massive support initially from Dennis Edwards.

We know that Zest eventually became one of the largest cut flower traders in the Market, but how did the firm progress through its formative years?

At first, it was a very small business, with a tiny turnover. However, I knew where and what I wanted to be – up there with the best of them, selling to the likes of McQueen’s, Rob Van Helden and Simon Lycett. These things inevitably take time and through 2004 and 2005, it was slowish progress.

Tony Graham joined me and he was a huge help to me during that period – we set up the foundations for what Zest became. Without him I don’t think we would have got to where we did, he was my anchorman and I really needed that. We grew the business, got Geoff Edwards in and kept trying to expand by doing the right thing.

There comes a time with a new business in the Market when you need a bit of new impetus and Terry Barry, who was still working for me when I left in February, was at Austins. After a lot of persuasion, he took the decision to come and work with us. Terry was the catalyst for moving Zest up a few levels quickly. He brought some of the bigger customers with him and he had different contacts to me.

Terry also convinced me to start working on Saturdays, which I’d resisted until then, but Saturdays became massive for us. It cuts into your life, of course, but within a year, that had boosted our buying power and turnover and catapulted our business forward again. By this time, we were supplying all three of the firms I namechecked earlier and eventually McQueen’s became a £million account for us, which was just phenomenal. With Terry serving Hybrid and Rob Van Helden and so many others, when Austins went out of business, we were in a good position to take on their salesmen, Terry Smith who is also still at G&B, Punchy, Eric and others. Austins customers tended to come to us and we became the biggest cut flower firm in the Market.

Things changed a lot in the last four years, as Zest became an integral part of Green & Bloom. Talk us through that.

My vision was always to keep progressing and Zest Flowers did that, thanks to a lot of hard work and a few good ideas from me and the team. But I still thought the internet was the way to go to keep the service in line with the way the Market was evolving. I was friendly with Martin Panter, owner of Arnott and Mason, and we chatted about it. His right-hand man was Freddie Heathcote (pictured above with Graeme) and we ended up going out to Holland to see how things were done at Van der Plas, which is a massive company with a big online presence. For us, it was really a trip to get some ideas, but it became clear from day one that they were interested in a partnership.

After several discussions, it seemed that combining the biggest flower trader at NCGM with one of the biggest plant wholesalers and a huge Dutch operator under a single Green & Bloom banner in the UK was a concept that couldn’t go wrong. We knew some people might be a bit anti the idea, some probably still are, but we really saw the potential.

As it turns out, for me it wasn’t the right decision. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve no doubt that Green & Bloom will still be successful now I’ve gone. But as soon as I’d signed the papers I felt like my voice was no longer heard and I’d lost control of operating in the way I felt it should be done, which had been really successful for a long period of time. Things were imposed upon us that I felt damaged the business at the time and we had disagreements. Maybe I was wrong some of the time, maybe I wasn’t, but basically the Dutch side of the business had taken over, as far as I was concerned.

The process towards me leaving started 18 months ago – it was hard for me to step back from the conflict, but I carried on doing my job in the Market and finally decided it was the right time to leave about six months ago. I still believe in the concept and what we set up, it just wasn’t going to work with us as a group of people. My stepson Luke has taken over from me and they have the firepower to make it fly, it’s up to them now.

Leaving the Market was very emotional, as some of the pictures and comments including around this article illustrate. But you didn’t quite plan it that way, did you?

At first, my plan was to leave at the end of 2024 and just disappear from the Market on December 31st. I wasn’t quite sure what I was thinking – just knew this was the end of my chapter and I didn’t really want a fuss. The paperwork wasn’t sorted though and they asked me to stay until Valentine’s Day. I suppose after 38 years it would have been daft not to say something, but I didn’t know how people would take it and I didn’t want to get emotional.

I’m glad it worked out this way though. I had a holiday and then a week to say my goodbyes and honestly, I couldn’t believe the response I got. It’s been crazy, very emotional and made me feel very humble. I hadn’t really realised that just by being me and doing my job, I helped a lot of people along the way. You don’t necessarily think about the impact you have on people at the time, but some of the messages I’ve received and what I’ve seen on social media, you just think ‘Wow!’.

The feeling’s mutual I can promise them – I made so many friends and had great relationships with so many customers and I’ll be forever grateful for that.

To have people who I haven’t served for a while to make the effort to come up to me and make such nice comments - it’s the proudest I’ve ever felt and something money can’t buy. It’s an intense trade and you don’t have a lot of time to think, but it’s made me realise that in those 38 years, I’d been doing a few things right.

So, your Market chapter ends. How will you remember the place you’ve devoted four decades of your working life to?

The Market changed my life completely. It means everything to me and I find it hard to put it into words. The hours might be s*** but it’s a wonderful place to work. The camaraderie is second to none, you don’t get that in offices. We’re all competing hard with each other every day, business is business, but if anyone’s in trouble, everyone stands by you. The Market does incredible things for its people when they need support and help.

It has changed massively of course. When I set up Zest in 2002, we sold largely boxes rather than bunches. That’s just one change, but the customer profile has undeniably got older. As much as you try to keep with the times and progress how you do things, I do think we’ve got to a time when some of the younger generation need to take the bull by the horns and find a new dimension and add new customers on to the fantastic customer base they already have. I hope Luke is at the vanguard of that change.

If you’d said the Market’s location is ideal 15 years ago, people would have laughed at you, but with the development of Nine Elms – Battersea Power Station and the American Embassy, I’m sure there will be a successful flower market as long as it is allowed to be there. There are a lot more non-trade customers lately, which reflects the changes in the area. It’s very different and we don’t want to see people coming in and buying from the Market rather than buying from our trade customers. In my mind though, with everything that’s going on in Nine Elms, there’s potential here for the site to become another Borough Market.

You obviously received a lot of support in your time here, Graeme, and your wife Katherine has worked alongside you for many years too.

There are so many people who supported me along the way. George, Tony and Terry stand out, of course, and I’m really pleased that Terry is still with the business too.

Kath has been with Zest since day one and has also now left the G&B business (on March 4th). She’s been the silent champion – doing all the work no one else wants to do! But seriously, she’s also been my rock – the best thing that ever happened to me in my life, but also the person I’ve leant on more than anyone when the proverbial hit the fan. People can work for a business but not see exactly what goes on behind the scenes, but Kath saw it all and she’s supported me throughout. She’s been part of all the meetings over the last few years and we’ll be glad it’s all behind us. Thank you, Kath!

Luke joined Zest in 2015 and I couldn’t be prouder of him since he came on board. He’s going to take over from me now and I know he’ll do a fantastic job. He’s got a great opportunity to work for a big company that will look after him and he’s 100% up for it, which again, we’re really proud of.

How has ‘retirement’ treated you to date?

It’s been pretty good so far, not getting up at stupid o’clock. I've been at the gym, doing bits of pieces. When Kath finished, we had a nice holiday and now we’ve started to crack on with what comes next!