How a humble village market in Norfolk is helping people in Cambodia
Ian Humphreys (right) chats to Docking Market founder-stallholder Peter Thompson. Picture: PETER BIRD - Credit: Archant
Children in one of the world's poorest countries are benefiting from a humble village market in Norfolk.
Heacham First Guides, from left, Grace Richardson, Kate Benstead and Freya Sands, prepare a bacon sandwich watched by guide leader, Sue Theunissen, and market organiser Ian Humphreys. Picture: PETER BIRD. - Credit: Archant
The Docking Market, which has just celebrated its fifth birthday, has raised money to help people in Cambodia.
The market was set up by Ian Humphreys to give people in the village the chance to shop locally after witnessing a range of shops in Docking close one by one.
He said: 'If residents wanted to shop the nearest places were Fakenham, Hunstanton or King's Lynn.
'We also did it to help raise funds for the village hall.'
And so Docking Market has opened every Wednesday since then at the village's Ripper Memorial Hall.
But over the five years the market has grown far bigger than first envisaged.
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Traders come from as far as Linconshire and Norwich and money is raised for charitable causes at home and abroad.
Stallholder Carol Sheppey uses the market to help her charity work in Cambodia.
All profits from the sale of hot soups and a range of preserves are used to help disadvantaged communities in the north-west area of the country.
The money has helped bring villages benefits such as vitamins, baby milk and clean water as well as helping finance the building of community centres and buying bicycles.
Approximately 70pc of the population of Cambodia is under 30 because of the Pol Pot Killing Fields atrocity when millions were massacred by the Kmer Rouge.
The aim of this Norfolk charity, Support Cambodia, is to help Cambodians help themselves. More can be found at www.supportcambodia.org.uk.
The market is now a well-established part of Docking life.
It has raised £17,000 for Docking's village hall and £2,000 for the church.
First Heacham guides help with the catering, with each session bringing them £60.
This week, traders were selling meat, fish, fruit and vegetables alongside fresh baked bread and cakes, preserves, fruit juices and rapeseed oil, jewellery and hand-made cards.
Peter Thompson has stayed with the market since the start and travels to Docking from Boston, Lincolnshire.
'I wouldn't be here if it wasn't worth my while,' he said.
