WAH! I missed the news completely (see below), so imagine my shock and dismay when I went to Ingliston market today and it was all gone! No secondhand stalls, no dodgy dealings by the gates, no burger vans, no racks of horrid sportswear, no offers to unlock phones, no piles of pirate DVDs. Nuffin. A bunch of blokes in cars watching the planes land and take off (what's that about?), a helicopter taking on passengers in a field. Boo hoo hoo!
This lovely mirror cost just £2 at Ingliston!
And even if the market does resurrect somewhere else, the gorilla won't be pink any more!
From The Edinburgh Evening News 4 Oct 2005:
FOR years he towered over proceedings at Edinburgh's biggest market, helping reunite thousands of lost children with their parents.
But now the giant, bright pink King Kong statue, which was a landmark at Ingliston Market for more than 30 years, has been taken away after the market's closure. The 22ft-high gorilla statue, which became famous at the market as a meeting point for separated parents and their children, is to be resurrected at the market's new site.
But Spook Erections, the owner of the market, which was axed last month, has still not disclosed the location of the new site.
Plans to expand the airport prompted the market's closure amid fears the current site would be swallowed up.
A spokeswoman for Spook Erections said the gorilla, which was uplifted from the Ingliston site yesterday, would undergo repairs and a makeover before being settled into his new home.
She said: "Unfortunately, he was pushed over by some vandals before the last market, so he wasn't able to take part in that upright.
"He has some damage to his back and has broken his arm, so he needs to be repaired before we can put him up at the new site.
"The planning application for the new site hasn't been finalised yet, so we're not allowed to put him there yet anyway. We shall reveal the new location soon."
She added that the gorilla, which was grey until four years ago when current market owner Lesley Maby, boss of Spook Erections, decided to paint him shocking pink, would undergo a colour change.
She said: "He will also be painted a different colour, though I don't know what that will be yet. It will be a surprise when the market reopens."
The gorilla, which weighs 890kg, was erected at the market in 1973, three years after it opened.
The spokeswoman said: "He was part of a range of unusual and fun things that the owner of the time, Mr Maby, a relative of Lesley, decided he wanted to introduce to the market."
David Dixon, of Neil Williams Haulage, was in charge of removing the gorilla from his old home and putting him in storage.
He said: "He is a real Ingliston landmark. He's been there for years and years and everybody knows about him. If children got lost at the market, there would be an announcement over the Tannoy, saying: 'The parents of so-and-so should come to the King Kong to collect their child.'"
He added: "It was very sad when we went to pick him up - he'd been damaged, so he had a lot of strapping on his arm, just as if he'd broken it."
In its heyday, Ingliston Market was renowned as being one of Europe's biggest outdoor markets, regularly boasting more than 2700 stalls and tens of thousands of shoppers every week.
I wish I had seen it in its heyday. Sigh. There are car boot sales in a parking garage in Edinburgh - I went to one once and it was horrid: stinking of petrol and cold and dingy. Yuck.
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