Camden High Street and Saint Pancras Way

Taking Camden tube station as our starting point, as you walk down Camden High Street, towards the murky triumvirate of Kings Cross, Saint Pancras and Euston train stations, you can feel the sense of unease growing. There are a lot of homeless people; immigrants looking deprived and bewildered and people with mental health problems, slowing traipsing along, looking for cigarette butts. On the coldest of winter days some of them will be walking around with an insubstantial amount of clothes on strangely immune to the weather, wearing trainers with no socks. Maybe there’ll be a guy enjoying a pint at 12.30 watching the world go by, throwing a friendly comment someone’s way – just a bit of communication to warm up his life. Occasionally towards the southern extremities there’ll be a guy stood on the corner, looking around shouting at someone who doesn’t exist, unleashing a tirade of heartfelt anger. The housing on Camden High Street looks to be of a very poor quality. Its small pokey terraced housing, two to three stories high, with ground floor shops one story added to the front.

St Pancras Way heads in the same direction as Camden High Road, towards the south, only it runs parallel to it and is off the beaten track, being mainly residential and service industries, rather than commercial.

It’s a cold grey February afternoon, I’m depressed, anxious, nervous, walking down St Pancras Way looking for some salvation. But to be frank the bleak urban wasteland of St Pancras Way is just about enough to tip me over the edge. I see a couple of track suit bottom wearing blokes get out of a van with St.George's flags painted on the back window panels. They disappear into the neighbouring complex of flats.

A single mother locks her flat door on the third floor whilst shouting for her daughter. Her son sucks on some E-numbered lollypop.

I look into a dingey ground floor flat window and see a room full of boyish men, sat on a sofa, looking like they haven’t really officially gotten out of bed, laughing and larking about. It’s a February weekday afternoon. Bleak times but it’s these times when you’ve got to make the effort and get out and do a bit of work. Better yourself. What are you doing? Maybe they're sociology students. Maybe they're illegal immigrants who can't get or don't want to get a job. Just like those lads all I really want to do is hibernate.

As you get to the bottom of Camden High Street and St Pancras Way, you can head towards St Pancras and Kings Cross by taking St Pancras Road or you can head down Evertholt Street towards Euston. None of these options are attractive.

St Pancras Road and Eversholt Road

The first thing you see walking down St Pancras Road on your left hand side is Saint Pancras Hospital, which, especially the bits of it visible from Saint Pancras road and from the nearby gardens, looks like an absolute ashtray. There are blocked drains and bits of litter everywhere. The St Pancras area is a cess pit, but you’d expect the hospital to be setting some standards.

The building looks like it’s falling to pieces. In fact I was not surprised that it used to be a workhouse before it was a hospital because its current state evokes images of the last days of a long-neglected mental asylum.

The walk down the straight Eversholt Road, which leads a determined path to Euston Train Station, is very dirty and dusty. Its one of those places where you just think, nothing good can come out of here. You just need to walk down it and forget about it. I feel sorry for the people who scurry across the road – thinking the poor fuckers have to live here – this is their life.

A the top of Eversholt Road sits Ampthill Estate, which if Camden High Street isn’t, then it is a clear marker for where trendy Camden Town completely degenerates into the murky world of train stations, namely Euston, Kings Cross, St Pancras and Mornington Crescent.

The estate consists of three flats with yellow, blue and red motifs.

They were built in 1965. Richard Osley writing in the Camden New Journal says ‘In 1999 they were white, in 2007 they are grey – is that pollution or a murky makeover?’

The estate is currently undergoing redevelopment; it looks a bit of a warzone at the moment; with the flats’ immediate environment being turned into a building site. On a windy day the dust picks up and gets in your eyes.

If you live on the estate and would be happy to write or talk about your experiences there I would be more than happy to hear from you.

Camden Market

Camden Market is OK, its not half as good as everyone makes out, and it is in many ways full of junk and clichés. I cannot stand for example all those t-shirts with the most inane clichéd statements, indicating that the wearer is very much an individual, not going to take any shit, hates the police and loves fucking. There’s obviously a market for them though.

I don’t know why but Camden Market is particularly attractive to the Spanish. I guess the Spanish, and the women in particular, like the bohemian hippy styles that Camden markets offer in abundance. You can’t fail to hear a Spanish accent walking around the markets.

Camden Market began in 1974, starting with the transformation of Camden Lock, which used to be a timber yard receiving trade via the canal, into a crafts market (Fulford, 2007). The crafts market is still there, although one half burned down in February 2008. A lot of people in Camden got very excited about the fire, although it is in the grand scheme of things a definite non-event. The day after the fire, which gutted the pub The Hawley Arms, nearby pub The Enterprise cheekily wrote on its advertising blackboards, ‘We’re Not on Fire! Come and Have a Pint!’ It also, tongue in cheek, publicly offered free beers to the police and fire brigade knowing full well that neither the police nor the fire brigade can drink whilst on duty. The Enterprise, laughing in the face of other peoples’ adversity.

Beneath Camden Lock sits a series of labyrinthine tunnels known as The Camden Catacombs. They were built in the 19th Century as stables for horses and pit ponies that were used to shunt railway wagons. Access is forbidden but you can see photos of the catacombs by visiting the relevant link below.

Further up the road from the Camden Lock market are the Historic Stables Market which offer a large range of informal, scruffy, street clothes.

Drug Dealing in Camden

Drug dealers ply their trade so explicitly in Camden, mainly concentrated on the road that leads up to Camden Market. At the Camden Tube Station end of Camden Lock there are usually a handful of skinny African drug dealers, who if they get the slightest bit of eye contact from you, and often if they don’t, will quickly utter some words, as if they are engaging in some secretive communication where they are not supposed to give away that they actually know you, which you don’t always catch, but you know is street slang for some drug. Similar looking guys hang immediately outside Camden Tube station - that is when there police aren’t there. They stand side by side with the punks. A few weeks ago in late March 2008, I saw coppers with a sniffer dog checking people for drugs as they emerged up the escalator. I feel sorry for the drug dealers I have to say. I mean they look brutalized, they don’t really look like they’re ever going to trust anyone, and that drug dealing is about the only thing they can do to earn a living; that doesn’t involve sticking a knife into someone. Fuck knows how they got like that. It’s not something that most people would like or care to think about.

One resident living close to Camden High Street talked to NWI magazine of the problems of drug dealers in his local area. He said, ‘You get rid of the crack houses in the block and the dealers start doing business in the street; you put up a fence and the savvy, desperate few find a way to kick the security door free of its magnetic restraints.’

Camden Undeground

At the end of 2007 a number of graffiti taggers found the nearest entry to the Northern Line and walked down the tunnel all the way to Camden Tube Station, where they left their mark. It was Christmas Day so the trains weren’t running. One artist, rather amusingly wrote Happy Birthday Jesus on the wall of the tube station.

Camden Night Life

Camden Town has been the setting for many historic nights stretching back to the sixties. In October 1966 for example an all night rave was held at the Roundhouse, which according to History Is Made At Night, drawing on Mick Farren’s Watch Out Kids, was then a disused railway engine shed. The night featured Pink Floyd, a Jamaican steel band, Paul McCartney who didn’t sing but turned up dressed as an Arab and what must have been a terrified horse pulling a cart around the place. I am sure there’s more to write about and I’ll certainly endeavor to fill this space. If you know of any good sources of landmark nights in Camden please send me the relevant links and information.

On the Piss in Camden

Camden has got to be one of the best places for a night out in London. The great thing about Camden is that in the main it lacks the pretentiousness of other places like Shoreditch or Upper Street. The men and women are generally less well dressed, unshaven, slightly less glamorous; which means you can spend less time preening yourself and more time having a laugh.

Whilst its probably true to say that there’s something for everyone in Camden, it’s a great place for fans of rock music, indie and its derivatives. Mind you if you’re looking for a fat tart in a skimpy dress loosing her balance on her high heels and sending her pint of snakebite flying, whilst ‘Cotton Eyed Joe’ plays in the background there’s always the Electric Ballroom – Camden’s answer to your provincial tacky megaclub.

Apparently, twenty to thirty years ago, Camden was packed full of Irish and other ethnic minority labourers, most of who would be rootless, and have been drinking since six o'clock in the evening. These days there are less labourers around, and its more middle class, but Camden is quite unique in the fact that it seems and I’ve got no hard evidence to back this up, but seems to have a strong local scene, i.e. people seem to know each other. There’s also a real age range and some real characters. One of my best memories was seeing this sixty or seventy year old guy, dressed up dapper, caning the beers in the Enterprise. Four hours later I saw him in the Marathon Bar playing saxophone to a packed house.

Probably the best pub to try out is the Elephants Head on Chalk Farm Road which has a rockabilly night on a Saturday. The pubs full of thirty to fifty year old, many of them dressed up for the occasion, looking stunning.

The Enterprise which is a little bit further up the road has got slightly less character but is full of a similar clientele. A number of user reviews on 'Beer in the evening' suggest that there a few hard nuts in the pub, who like to needlessly assert themselves from time to time. I've certain seen a few cases in the Enterprise. I remember one guy, who wasn't that tall, but was three men in one, stumbling around. Although he was fucked out of his mind, he seemed to have this little glint in his eye, like the drunkardness was an act just so he could bump into someone to start a fight. A real loose cannon.

Once the pubs have closed you can go on to a club and there’s plenty of action. The Barfly is always a good bet – usually has a rocking disco downstairs – playing a variety of music – Stones, James Brown for example – it hosts various crappy bands upstairs.

Wherever you are in Camden if the night’s not going brilliantly, or you just need to extend it by an hour, get yourself down to the Marathon Bar; a stone’s throw from Chalk Farm tube station and open until three. On a weekday it is a quiet fast food outlet. On a Saturday evening it comes alive. Strange you might think for a fast food outlet, but the Marathon Bar has two rooms, and on a Saturday night the dining room in the back, is cleared of its tables as the night beckons, and a couple of saxophone players start playing over records. Soon the backroom is packed, people dancing on the spot, and in groups, there’s no space for anything more vigorous. The magic of the Marathon Bar is its mixed clientele, which one person on the next has quite rightly called ‘mentalist’. There’s such a random assortment of off the wall people. One night, on this occasion outside of the bar on the street, I found myself in a group which included a forty year old woman completely caned on crack and a sixty-year old velvet wearing Ethiopian tailor. At the same time the crack head was rubbing her body up against mine flirting with me in the most embarrassingly overstated way, the tailor was telling us about how he had the power to cause tsunamis whilst offering bits of weed to people for free. Even the shyest will find it difficult not getting into a chat with someone at the Marathon.

But sometimes the night only really begins when all the clubs shut. Next on the agenda is milling outside the club, and walking back home, often in the company of some stranger. Whether you get befriended by a blood stained psycho who wants to know the way back to Peckham and then threatens to kill you once you've told him, or a nineteen year old whose family disowned him after he spent his inheritance on the woman he loved (who then later chucked him), there’s always more fun to be had.

And then finally on to the night bus, which can be a hit and miss affair. If you’re lucky, you’ll get chatting to someone, have a laugh, a bit of a flirt, or you might see a bit of aggravation. If you’re not so lucky, or you’re not in the mood, it’s a weary, silent, downtrodden face all the way back home.

But night buses usually have a bit of atmosphere and each one has its own character. Take the N29 for example, which given its general direction, Wood Green, is usually full of rowdy working class immigrants or sons and daughters of immigrants. Invariably there’s some kind of aggravation as blokes who haven’t pulled, keep a stiff upper lip, forget about their failures, and try to get their kicks through acting hard. Just the slightest touch can sometimes provoke. I remember once seeing a huge black lad, not very tall but massive in size, start kicking off with three smaller Asian lads. Together the whole group fell off the bus in a collapsed rugby scrum style. And as the bus left you could see the three Asian lads kicking the big guy and then scarpering as the Black lad got to his feet and went in pursuit. I don’t know if the Black lad was quick enough to grab hold of any of them but I wouldn’t have liked to have been at the end of whatever he had in mind on dishing out.

The N43 in contrast, heading towards the wealthier and whiter Highgate, Muswell Hill and Friern Barnet, is usually full of comedian wanabee white guys, who buoyed by alcoholic excess feel the need to bathe everyone in their soon to be televised wit. Some of it is quite funny, but I do also find that that middle class scornful sarcasm sometimes gets on my wick. I remember one night there were two white guys dishing out the scorn and sarcasm to everyone, brutally insulting a girl with a big nose, safe in their little bubble of mutual masturbatory ridicule. To my surprise this girl, who had previously been talking to her friend, turned to her side to talk to the guys. She was amazing quick-witted and started to tie these boys up in knot. The knockout blow came when she invited them back to her house for a blow job each. They asked her if she was serious and she said yes and that it had been a long night. The two guys were stunned. Eventually the girl got off at her stop, and whilst the boys shouted at her to get her attention, neither of them ended up having the balls to take her up on her offer. Maybe they didn’t want it, but I suspect that at least one of them did, and probably bitterly regretted not doing it.

The Irish in Camden

The Irish have had a large presence in Camden, especially during the twentieth century. NW1 magazine has pointed out that, ‘Victorian Kentish town is surrounded by bricks laid by the huge numbers of immigrants who arrived in London after the great famines of the 19th century.’

After the Second World War many Irish immigrants, newly arrived in the capital, were used in post-war reconstruction. Camden, which was an important post-war centre of industry attracted many Irish immigrants. Arlington House, a shelter for homeless men, provided beds for many men newly arrived from Ireland. It still has a great many Irish men ensconced there.

The result of so many Irish laborers within Camden was that Camden became ‘the focus of much social activity for the Irish; building workers from all over the South of England would travel to Camden for their weekends off, and use Arlington House for temporary lodgings’ (The Aisling Project, 2006). It has been said that in the fifties there was a lot of fights in the pubs of Camden mainly between labourers of different nationalities. The answer, ‘The Windsor Castle for the English, The Edinburgh Castle for the Scots, The Pembroke Castle for the Welsh and the good old Dublin for the Irish.’ (Gruner, 2007). Another important Camden landmark The Electric Ballroom was set up by an Irishman immigrant, Bill Fuller, although under the name of The Buffalo (NW1 mag, issue 2).

One time resident of Arlington House, Tim Buckley, taking part in an oral history project, pointed out that the traffic island near Camden Tube Station, which contains the subterranean public toilets, used to be known as ‘Pelican island’ to the local Irish mean, ‘because on Sunday morning, come about ten to twelve, they'd [the Irish lads] all be their in their blue suits and their white shirts, and their black ties, waiting for twelve o'clock [pub opening time]….That one [pub] over there called 'the World's End', that used to be the Mother Redcap [famous for Irish traditional music sessions]’ (see the Aisling Project).

Many of the Irish labourers, who are getting older and are no longer in employment, and living in the shelter at Arlington House, have been priced out of the market, and can no longer afford the pubs in Camden (The Aisling Project, 2006).

Camden Town

The history of Camden Town stretches back to the end of the eighteenth century when it used to be open land and fields. Indeed if you pay a trip to York Lane you can still see the last remnants of this.

Incredibly this open land used to be traversed by the Fleet River, which has since been driven underground.

It was the Earl of Camden, a wealthy landowner, who developed and urbanised Camden, encouraging building work, canals and railways lines into the area. The canal industry began to fall off as of the 1950s, with the development of the road network.

References

• History Is Made At Night
• Camden Town Online
• Camden Lock: A Brief History
• Camden Blog
• Camden TV website.
• Camden Catacombs
• Photos of Camden Lock Blaze, February 2008
• Gruner, P. (2007) Building Barlow’s Shed, New Camden Journal, November 2007.
• The Aisling Project: One Man's Story: Former Arlington House Resident, Tim Buckley [1928-1998].
• Another Nickel in the Machine.
• The Aisling Project: The Irish in Arlington House.