THE ONION SELLER

ONION JOHNNY

 This is a sight that you don't see too often these days. This Guy with his bike and onions is a French Onion Seller commonly called an 'Onion Johnny'.
This picture was taken last weekend at the Wimborne Food Festival.
When I was a youngster we used to see these guys quite often along the south coast. Onion Johnny is the nickname given to Breton farmers and agricultural labourers who used to visit the UK selling their distinctive pink onions door to door.
As I said, they were once very common but their numbers declined from the 1950s. By 1973 the number of Onion Johnnies had to dropped to 160 people and by the end of the twentieth century the number of regular sellers had dropped still further to around 20. Apparently the numbers of these guys has started to increase again.
They used to travel out of Roscoff in North Western France and right up to the present day a 2 day onion festival (Fete de l'Oignon) is held every summer in the town. They even have a museum in Roscoff dedicated to the onion..!
I am given to understand that each bundle of onions would weigh approx 3.5kilos and a Johnny would carry about 20 strings on his bike...
It was a real 'blast from the past' for me to see this guy.


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There were pine trees everywhere and the smell of these just hung in the air constantly........

GREAT CYCLE PATHS

BIKE SHOP ACROSS THE ROAD

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John went across the road to the bike shop that you can see in this photo while I stayed at the cafe this side of the road drinking a nice coffee with a large slice of cake. John actually bought a couple of very nice blue water bottles from this shop. This was because I had been pulling his leg about the bottles he was using because they didn't match his bike(or anything else come to that). In the end John decided that I WAS right and he needed to get a couple of new ones that matched his bike........

MORE CYCLE PATH

VIEW THROUGH THE PINE TREES TO THE BEACH

MORE PINE TREES...MORE CYCLE PATH...

GREAT CYCLING....CYCLE PATH & PINE TREES...WONDERFUL.