The Trustees welcomed guests associated with the town’s market in days gone by, our Patrons, Friends and exhibition volunteers amongst others.

Museum Trustee Simon Kerr said a few words of welcome and spoke about how fitting it was the the Museum launch an exhibition on the town’s markets and fairs ‘standing, as we are on the site of part of the old East Grinstead Market’ before handing over to Museum volunteer and retired market clerk Doris Jenner saying ‘I would never have thought as a child in the 1950s that I would be standing here in sixty year’s time to introduce someone, who I must have seen and stood and watched as she worked here all those years ago’

Doris recalled how she had become a market clerk during the Second World War after joining the auctioneer’s firm of Turner, Rudge and Turner. Market day was Thursday (as it still is today!) and she would, in the early days, find herself couriering messages between the firm’s office and the market before finding herself at the market on a permanent basis. Doris told attendees about the bustle of the market, the variety of animals there for sale and about how she kept the books and took cash amongst other duties. She then declared the exhibition officially open.