1. Saturday, August 13, 2005
London's last Onion Johnny ( Posted by Colin Dowse on
a blog)
A village on the coast of Brittany was in mourning last week at
the death of London's last Onion Johnny.
Roscoff paid its respects to Jean Le Roux, a farmer who had
been crossing the Channel to sell his onions door-to-door in
London for more than half a century. He died in August 2005
aged 73.
Mr Le Roux was the last Onion Johnny in London, where he
lived up to eight months of the year selling strings of Roscoff's
highly-prized onion rosé and shallots to households and the
city's best restaurants.
Mr Le Roux was part of a tradition that dates back to 1828,
when the first onion sellers arrived in Plymouth before
spreading east. They were mostly very young and many were
called Jean, hence the Johnny nickname.
By 1930, more than 1,500 peddled their wares in Britain,

2. helping to create a national stereotype of the Frenchman with
onion or garlic breath that leaves most French baffled. Today,
with Mr Le Roux gone, their number has fallen to 15.
Mr Le Roux started his trips to London with his father shortly
after the Second World War.
Sir Winston Churchill was among his customers.
When I was a kid growing up in London I well remember the
Onion Men (not sure if I called them Johnnies) wearing berets,
and often a blue and white ribbed jersey with a red neckerchief,
selling onions door-to-door from their bicycles loaded up with
strings of onions - my mother always bought when they called.