Straight outta NW1

Funny thing about tonight's fire in Camden - it's the other side of London, it's somewhere I don't really visit very often these days, but it still stopped me in my tracks. Thankfully, it seems the damage isn't as bad as it was first feared - when the talk was of the stables market going up, some kind of inferno surrounding the North London Line - and it would appear, mercifully, that nobody's been badly hurt.

But it's wrecked a corner of a place which holds countless memories for me - as it must do for millions of people, in London and beyond. There was me earlier on tonight, trying to rack my brains as to just when I'd drank with some pals (oooh, here's one) in the Hawley Arms - long before it became a tabloid favourite. (About seven years ago, I reckon.) And what of the little market behind, by the canal? Did I really file through there every other weekend in my late teens, banking on finding some kind of bargain? Probably.

That bit of Camden Town means so much to so many people, the thought of something happening to it, pushing those memories even further back into the distance, was a jolt. But why? I don't know - in the early 90s, if you liked decent music (with guitars), you went to Camden. Simple as that.

But it was more than that. To me, it was finding Jazzie B's Soul II Soul stall at the top of the high street at 15. Prince's short-lived shop on Chalk Farm Road. That really cool free listings paper called The Good Times (and its Straight Outta NW1 t-shirts). The Vintage Magazine Shop. Rokit. Buying Keb Darge's mix tapes right at the far end of the Stables Market. Buying loads of vinyl that I haven't touched for a decade. The Underpants. Drinking in the Good Mixer when it was still shabby, just as it was getting famous. Thinking I was cool, because I was in there during the day at the same time as Steve Lamacq. Those fucking dealers that kept hanging around the canal bridge. Drunken nights at the Monarch. Losing mates in different pubs and trying to find them again. The original Camden Crawls. Dingwalls. Late drinks in Quinns in Kentish Town Road with an Australian girl I fancied. Seeing Graham Coxon more than once in Quinns. Waiting for the night bus home outside Sainsburys.

And then it all eased off for me - different priorities, changing social scenes, and also a fair chunk of London's music scene decamping to Shoreditch meant my trips north weren't so frequent. The last time I was up there was three months ago, a mate's birthday in the Jazz Cafe, talking to a starstruck young woman who saw Camden as a land of celebrities and excitement. Me and my mate took it all in, then got blisteringly hammered in a bar around the corner.

Whatever happens to that corner of Camden, once the smoke has cleared. I hope it respects the memories millions of people must have of the area. But this being London, property leech's paradise, it may be a forlorn hope. I hope the spirit of the rough old Caernarvon Castle lives on - and if anyone mentions "regeneration", they get a punch in the bracket.

Comments

[Nico]

Hear hear!

[The Girl]

I'm just so sad. That is all. Nice summation of it.

[Pauly]

Clare was there that night, I'm pretty sure it wasn't her started it though... not been that way myself for a while, the last time I was there in an evening might have been with you.